


Adoration

by Syls Darkplace (sylsdarkplace)



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Blood and Gore, Horror, M/M, Murder, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4550037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylsdarkplace/pseuds/Syls%20Darkplace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming off a year of dealing with his parents' estate, Jared buys an old mansion in the country with the goal of becoming the proprietor of a B&B and a novelist. The house has a dark past, but he scoffs at the idea that it's haunted. Then, he gets the feeling he's being watched and strange things begin to happen in the house. A brutal murder in town has the local sheriff looking into the murder of Jared's parents. While events have Jared questioning reality, Jensen woos him the only way he knows how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Title Page

**Author’s note:** I’d like to thank homo_pink, vennstiel and alexa_dean for inspiring this piece. Hope you all like it. I’d also like to thank fellow T.O.E. and alpha anniespinkhouse, and beta extraordinaire and friend vennstiel without whom this would not have been possible. I can’t say enough about my artist kinkajou who created wonderful art and was lovely to work with.

This fic is dedicated to all the readers who have supported me over the years and especially during this difficult summer.


	2. Chapter 1

It had been a while since the flame-haired woman had parked her ivory car in front of his house. Months perhaps. For years, the yellow sign had stood beside the drive like a child perpetually awaiting a twin-colored bus.  
  
The woman waited on the porch. Her cigarette smoke wafted upward on the light breeze. Her voice was the rasp of sandpaper on wood as she talked on her cell phone. “…from the city, mm-hm,” the words came and went like the smoke on the breeze. “Can’t imagine why anyone would want it.”  
  
The sun glinted off the windshield of a red truck as it climbed the hill and stopped. A young man unfolded himself from inside, and Jensen watched. The boy stretched, his shirt pulling up to expose a flat plane of flesh that made Jensen stir and want.  
  
The boy was tall and lean with hair the color of good bourbon. The wind lifted and ruffled it. Jensen wanted to bury his face in the oaky scent of it. Feel it like the silk of milkweed pods broken between his fingers.  
  
The kid looked up with vulpine eyes, his gaze caressing the house, but he didn’t see Jensen who willed him to come closer.  
  
Yet, the boy did. He joined the woman on the porch.  
  
The boy’s laughter was like sunlight, pure and clear as moonshine. Jensen could almost taste it on his tongue.  
  
He thought he could hear the boy’s heartbeat, corpuscles surging through his veins, hot and intoxicating just beneath the skin. Jensen wanted to drown in the sorghum dark, ruby bright liquor that pooled at his core.  
  
Jensen had touched others, thought he’d loved others, but none compared.  
  
There ought to be altars to this boy. There would be shrines.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
The air had been heavy with the promise of rain all morning. Jared had felt it in the pressure behind his eyes. As he left his apartment building, the sky was leaden gray and rain poured down in buckets. His truck was a good twenty feet away, but much as he’d have liked to turn around and go back to bed, he put his head down and dodged through the deluge. He hit the automatic door lock and jumped into the driver’s seat, smacking his head on the door frame in the process.  
  
“Aw, fuck. That’s gonna bruise,” he swore as he pulled the door shut behind him. He reached up and rubbed the spot with a wince. Rain bounced off the shiny red truck hood, and he breathed in the new car scent with satisfaction. Shaking the water from his hair, he stretched his legs and settled in the leather seat.  
  
Then his gaze fell on the empty cup holder. “Damn it!” He looked back out at the sheets of rain falling between him and the apartment building. He could picture his blue travel mug setting on the counter beside the sink. “Shit! Mother fuck …” He huffed and stabbed the key into the ignition. The five-liter V8 roared to life, and Pearl Jam poured from the speakers, … _have all been washed in black, tattooed everything_. He’d put the truck into gear and eased it from the parking spot.  
  
He’d stopped at a Shell station at the Wilder exit, filled up the tank, and gotten a large coffee at McDonald’s. The farther he’d gotten from Cincinnati, the more the rain let up and the cloud cover lightened. Now, approaching his destination, the rain had stopped and the sun broke through the clouds. The AA Highway was a wide ribbon of two-lane blacktop that cut through wooded hills and hollows from Alexandria to Ashland, Kentucky. Signs pointed the direction to Cold Spring, Carntown, and Brooksville, but he never saw a town.   
  
He’d left the AA highway about ten miles back, and the narrow road dipped downward in switchbacks till it intersected with a state route that ran along the Ohio River. Below the highway was the railroad, and a freight train rumbled past headed north with a load of coal. The oncoming lane was broken and crumbling as though the hillside was trying to tip it onto the railway. Sunlight flickered through the trees and reflected in off the blue mirror of the river in blinding flashes. Jared dug his sunglasses out of the console and put them on just as he entered the picturesque village of Athens.  
  
He slowed the truck to twenty-five and rolled down Main Street, past Bishop’s Southern Café, the Magnolia Blossom Florist, the domed courthouse on the town green, a hardware store, a sundries store, the post office, and a small brick building with a sign that declared it the Ohio Valley Underground Railroad Museum. The store fronts were well-maintained and only one looked empty. Jared wondered if there was a manufacturing plant hidden away somewhere or if the residents took the AA to a nearby town for work.  
  
He glanced at the directions the real estate agent had emailed him and continued out of town on the state route. The road resumed its curving meander through the trees before rising upward, and a small break in the foliage gave him a glimpse of high gables and a turret with a roof like a witch’s hat.  
  
_And when I wake up in the morning to feel the daybreak on my face,_ he sang along to the stereo. _There’s a blood that’s flowing through the feeling with a knife to open up the sky’s face. Some things will never change…_  
  
A yellow realty sign a few yards ahead signaled him to indicated his turn onto a drive that climbed upward at a gradual angle before a hairpin turn steepened the ascent through the shadowed trees. The truck’s four-wheel drive would come in handy in the winter if he took the place. The house looked enormous when the trees cleared, and it rose suddenly ahead of the truck. Jared leaned down to see the gables three stories up through the windshield.  
  
He pulled the truck to a stop behind an older-model white Cadillac that looked like it had just been driven out of the dealership. He glanced down at the clock on the dash – a quarter to four. He was fifteen minutes early. At least something was going right today.  
  
A Curt Kirkwood riff cut off as he killed the engine, and he pushed the truck door open. Getting out, he lifted his arms over his head and stretched. His gaze lingered on the turret, which rose another story above the main roof of the house. Unlike the lower floors, the fourth floor of the turret was open and surrounded by an ornate railing. His gaze ran across the façade. A wide stone porch stretched across the front where a woman with bright red hair stood watching him. She waved a hand that held a cigarette, and Jared walked to the steps.  
  
“Mrs. Dunajski?” he said as he climbed the steps. Up close, he could see the white roots of her hair.  
  
“Call me Lola, honey,” she said. Her voice was like five miles of rough gravel road, and her red lipstick feathered into the fine lines around her lips. She wasn’t much over five feet tall, and her beige trench coat did nothing for her stocky build. She transferred her cigarette to her left hand and put her right out. Jared took her hand. Her grip was firm and warm. Her smile was warmer. “Aren’t you a tall drink of water?”  
  
It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard from older ladies before, and he gave her his most dazzling smile. “So I’ve been told.”  
  
“Texas, huh? I know the accent,” she said as she picked through a ring of keys. “Here we are.” She selected a brass key. “Grow ‘em big down there.”  
  
“That’s what they say,” Jared replied automatically.  
  
“So, welcome to Black House,” Lola said. She gestured to the long porch where dead leaves had collected in corners and cement urns held nothing but dry dirt. “The original house burned during the Civil War, and Dr. Henry Louis Black had this one built to replace it in 1869. It stayed in the Black family until, oh, forever. Just two owners since.”  
  
“Oh? How long has it been empty?” Jared asked.  
  
“Five years,” Lola said as she fitted the key in the lock of the wide front door.  
  
“Looks in pretty good shape,” Jared said.  
  
Lola jiggled the door knob. “Always sticks,” she said as the door popped open. “There we are.” She let the door swing open. “Well, houses were built solid back then, and the Peters – not the last owners, but the ones before – put some money into it. They updated the electric and plumbing. You’ll see.”  
  
Jared stepped into the foyer, which had a parquet floor and brass pendant light fixture with a tear-drop shaped amber globe. He reached out to touch the wallpaper, which had a palm leaf design.  
  
“Original wallpaper,” Lola said.  
  
“Seriously?” Jared asked.  
  
“That’s what Peters said. He did all kinds of research. Wanted the renovation to be as authentic as possible,” she said. “Not that he worried about that when he put in bathrooms, but that’s a selling point, right?”  
  
Jared nodded. “Sure.”  
  
“He added a half bath downstairs.” She walked across the foyer. “Back here in the hall. Used to be a storage closet for linens, table cloths and such.”  
  
Jared had a glimpse of a parlor to his left as he followed her. To his right, a stairwell with glossy oak woodwork climbed upward. He glimpsed inside the powder room – all white tile with a black Greek key design and replica turn of the century fixtures right down to the wall-mounted soap dish.  
  
“Nice,” he said.  
  
“Handy to not have to run upstairs all the time,” Lola commented. They went back the way they came, and Jared went into the parlor. The hardwood floors were flawless, and their footsteps echoed in the empty house. Ceilings rose ten feet overhead and wide crown moldings circled them. Hunched shapes lurked under dust cloths.  
  
“The furniture is included in the price?” Jared asked.  
  
“Yes, most rooms are furnished. They’re selling it as is.”  
  
“Huh.” Jared couldn’t fight the tickle in his nose and sneezed against the arm of his hoodie.  
  
“Bless you,” Lola said.  
  
“Thanks,” he said. “A little dusty.”  
  
“Mm, surprised it isn’t worse, to be honest.” The Realtor said as she ran a fingertip over the marble mantle.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared said as he stepped into the round turret space. His footsteps echoed on the parquet floor. Six windows enclosed the semi-circular space. He imagined reading in a comfortable chair on a snowy day.  
  
“So, why would a young man like you want a big old place like this in the middle of nowhere?” Lola asked. She followed Jared as he passed back through the front parlor into the back parlor.  
  
“Big old place not too far from the city in beautiful countryside near a pretty little town,” he said. “I thought it might make a good bed and breakfast.”  
  
She smiled. “That it would, and you’ll be happy to hear that Peters added bathrooms to the second and third floors. There are three on each now.”  
  
“I should send him a muffin basket,” Jared said as he entered the dining room. It had dark red walls above oak paneling and a coffered ceiling. “Wow, dramatic.”  
  
“A bit much for my taste,” Lola said.  
  
Jared wondered how many houses the woman sold with that kind of pitch. He passed through a swinging door into a butler’s pantry and then the kitchen. It was dated but serviceable. “Doesn’t look like he did much in here.”  
  
The stove was harvest gold circa 1965 and the white refrigerator even older. The faded countertops had a metal edge, and the double-basin sink had a built-in drainboard. A beat-up Formica table was pushed against a wall while a heavy butcher block table dominated the center of the room. A doorway led to an enclosed porch with a utility sink and open shelves holding cleaning supplies and small gardening tools. The window over the sink looked out over the lawn bathed in late afternoon light.  
  
“No,” Lola said. “Odd isn’t it. The last folks, the Bennetts, didn’t either. You’d have thought the wives would’ve been on ‘em about that, but then the Bennetts weren’t here long. Maybe they ran out of money.” She opened the old Frigidaire. “Doesn’t smell though. The appliances all work as far as I know, but they haven’t been on in a while. No one’s been interested in viewing it for months.”  
  
“So I might be able to talk them down on the price?” Jared said.  
  
“Can’t hurt to try. As long as it’s been empty, I’d say they just want to get out from under the debt at this point.”  
  
Jared nodded. There was a breakfast room off the kitchen and beyond it a glass enclosed swimming pool. “Holy cow,” Jared said as he stepped into the area. It had the appearance of a greenhouse with a peaked roof and ornate metal work. The pool was an empty, dirty rectangle, however.  
  
“Can you imagine what this looked like?” he asked.  
  
“Yes,” Lola said. “I remember.”  
  
“You were here?”  
  
“I sure was,” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “It was a coon’s age ago, high school, and there was a party here – not a pool party, a fancy party. The boys wore suits and the girls all wore heels and lipstick and did our hair up. It was beautiful. There were flowers and candles floating in the pool and the light reflected off the all the glass…”  
  
Jared tried to imagine her then – petite and curvaceous in a cocktail dress and spike-heeled pumps. Her red hair would be in French twist with a gardenia tucked into it. There would have been dozens of them here – boys in serious black suits and girls wearing pearls.  
  
She lost the faraway look and sighed. “My date was an ass, but maybe I should have married him. I never got the chance to go to another party like that.”  
  
Jared wasn’t sure what to say, but then she broke into a grin. “I’m kidding, honey. I love my Frank, and I have three great kids, seven grandkids.” She looked around the pool area again before turning back to the house. “Nice memory though.”  
  
Jared couldn’t have been more impressed with the house. There were rooms that needed painted and a few repairs to be made, but nothing major seemed to be a problem. There were six bedrooms and three bathrooms on each of the upper floors. He took a quick look in all of them, except a bedroom on the third floor.  
  
“That one’s locked,” Lola said. “I haven’t found a key for it.”  
  
“Isn’t it just a standard skeleton key?” Jared asked.  
  
“I haven’t found one that fits,” she said.  
  
“Huh, I’ll have to take a look at it,” he said.  
  
She smiled.  
  
“If I decide to buy it,” Jared said. The took the back staircase down to the kitchen.  
  
There was a door near the butler’s pantry in the hall that led to the cellar, and the basement looked good as well. The rock foundation was solid. There was no water seepage. Just as Lola had said, there was a relatively new breaker box and plumbing.  
  
“That’s odd,” he said. He was already getting a crick in his neck from ducking his head under floor joists as he looked around.  
  
“What’s that?” Lola stopped poking around a shelf.  
  
Jared looked along one wall and then the other. “The dimensions look off. The basement’s wide enough, but not deep enough.”  
  
“There’s a crawl space under the back half of the house,” she said. “The house is built on the hill, on a limestone shelf. A lot of the old houses are like that.”  
  
“No kidding? Shouldn’t there be access to the crawl space?”  
  
Lola walked along the back wall. “Here,” she said pointing to a square space about halfway up the rock wall where a board was in place.  
  
He nodded. “Good enough,” he said. “I need to get out of here or I’ll never be able to straighten up again.”  
  
Back in the front hall, Jared stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I really like it,” he said. “See, what I really want is to be a writer, and I figure a bed and breakfast would give me the income and space to do that.”  
  
“You don’t think running a B &B would eat up all your time?” Lola asked.  
  
“I hope not.” He rocked up on his toes.  
  
“I thought maybe you were independently wealthy.” She squinted a bit.  
  
“Nah,” he said. “My parents died not too long ago. Only child so…”  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said.  
  
“Thanks, but we weren’t close.”  
  
She nodded. “Still, losing parents is tough.” She patted his arm.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared said. “Yeah, I guess so.”  
  
Lola walked to the door. “So what do you think?”  
  
“I think I’d like to make an offer.” He followed her onto the porch, and she locked the door.  
  
“Wonderful,” she said. She already had a cigarette between her lips and was lighting it with a Bic lighter.  
  
A breeze swirled across the porch and blew his hair into his eyes. His long fingers raked it back. “I want to ask you a question though.”  
  
“Shoot,” Lola said before taking a drag.  
  
“If Peters sank all that money into the house, why’d they up and leave the way they did?”  
  
Lola squinted up at him through her cigarette smoke. “Said it was haunted.”  
  
Jared’s eyebrows lifted, and he gave her a bemused smile. “Haunted? The Bennetts too?”  
  
“Flighty city people,” she said as she began to pick her way down the cement steps in her low-heeled black pumps. “Not like you.” She tossed the comment back over her shoulder and continued down. She stopped at the bottom and waited for him. “You’re a level-headed kid. I can tell.” She tipped her head to one side.  
  
“Yeah, I s’pose I am. So what did they say happened?”  
  
“Oh, the usual.” She gestured with the hand holding the cigarette. “Lights flickering, things going missing and then reappearing.”  
  
“That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would chase people from their home,” Jared said.  
  
“No.” She hesitated before going on. “Then … dead animals, parts of them, bloody messages.”  
  
“Pets?”  
  
“No, no, birds, I think, a rabbit maybe.”  
  
“What kind of messages?”  
  
“Can’t say I recall.”  
  
“And they thought it was a ghost?”  
  
“That’s what they said, but between you and me – the Peters had a son, teenager, you know.”  
  
Jared didn’t comment.  
  
“He seemed like a nice enough kid, but quiet, dyed black hair and eyeliner. I’m not judging. I raised two boys in the seventies. I know about the kind of shit kids get into. The Bennetts – just jumpy from stories – or maybe their son thought it would be funny to prank his family because of the ghost stories. Doesn’t make ‘em bad kids.”  
  
“No, right,” Jared agreed. “So you think the sons killed the animals?”  
  
“That or a ghost,” Lola said. “What do you think?”  
  
“Like I said, I want to make an offer,” Jared said. He opened the door of the Cadillac for her. “I want to think about it on the way home. I’ll give you a call this evening.”  
  
“You do that, sweetheart,” she said and tossed her cigarette butt onto the driveway before getting into her car. “You have a safe drive home.”  
  
Jared closed her car door and went to his truck. He grinned just at the sight of it. He swung the door open and stopped with one hand on the door and one on the roof. He looked up at the house from the sturdy stone foundation to the witch’s hat piercing the blue sky. He belonged here. It was already his, except in title. He could feel it.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
Jensen wandered from room to room, retracing the boy’s footsteps. His gaze lingered on mantles and doorknobs where the boy’s long fingers had rested. He could still hear the echo of Jared’s voice with its warm resonance.  
  
Jensen’s heart ached as though pierced by an arrow. It had been so long since he’d felt anything and nothing ever like this. It was an almost physical thing. This desperate longing had filled his hollow places – all of him.  
  
He’d wanted to follow the boy and climb in that big red truck with him, go wherever, but he couldn’t. He’d become as insubstantial as smoke. His hands opened and closed at his sides again and again, grasping at air, at what he couldn’t have.  
  
But Jared had told the flame haired woman that he wanted to buy the house. He would be back. Jensen had to believe that and prepare.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
Everything had seemed to go so fast for Jared after his parents’ funeral, but it had been more than a year getting through all the legal hurdles. His mother had all their affairs in order, and there had been much bigger insurance policies than he’d have expected.  
  
“Wow, impressive,” his buddy, Chad, said as his gaze took in the façade of the house. He craned his neck to see the upper gables. “Money well spent.”  
  
“Awesome, isn’t?” Jared grinned. “Wait till you see the inside.” He unlatched and opened the door on the back of the U-Haul.  
  
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Chad hefted a box in the back of the U-Haul and walked down the metal ramp. He looked up at the house looming over him. “Good tax shelter too.”  
  
“That’s not why I bought it,” Jared said as he pulled the metal ramp down from the back of the truck.  
  
“Just sayin’ – it was a lot of money. Sinking it into a home was a smart move.” He took a box Jared handed him and headed into the house. Jared grabbed a box and followed him.  
  
“Damn.” Chad stood in the foyer looking around. “This place is like a fucking museum.”  
  
“What I’d tell you? Amazing, right?” Jared did a slow circle looking up the oak stairwell. “Look at this woodwork. It’s like this everywhere – crown moldings, coffered ceilings. Wait till you see the turret. And the only place the woodwork is painted is the bathrooms and kitchen. And the fireplaces, you won’t believe.”  
  
“Nice.”  
  
“More than nice,” Jared said. “You know what a place like this would cost in Cincinnati?”  
  
“I can only imagine,” Chad said. “Where’s this go?”  
  
“Um, well the box says ‘kitchen’ on it, so …”  
  
Chad rolled his eyes. “Maybe you could give me the GPS coordinates, smart ass.”  
  
“Straight back and to the right.”  
  
“Yeah, I think I can manage that,” Chad said and went toward the back of the house.  
  
Jared climbed the stairs to the second floor. All the rooms in the front of the house were off a main hallway running the width of the house, but halfway along it, another hall ran to the back of the house. He followed it to the room he’d chosen for himself, which was near a bath and the back staircase to the kitchen. It was simple and big enough for a king-size bed, and the windows looked out over the wooded hillside behind the house. There was a single light fixture overhead, a tiny closet, and an iron-fronted coal fireplace rather than a large open fireplace.  
  
Best to go get the bed now while Chad was still fresh and semi-enthusiastic, Jared thought. He trotted downstairs to find Chad standing in the foyer with a brownie in his hand.  
  
“Your realtor lady left you brownies,” he said.  
  
Jared grimaced. “Great, help yourself.”  
  
Chad looked sheepish. “Yeah, sorry. I’m starving.”  
  
“Mi casa, man. You know that,” Jared said. He went back to the kitchen with Chad at his heels.  
  
A plate of brownies sat on the table with a note and the extra keys to the house. Jared picked up the sheet of blue note paper.  
  
_Welcome home! Let me know if you need anything. Lola_  
  
Jared snatched a brownie from under the plastic wrap. “Damn, these are good,” he said. “Grab another and let’s get this stuff in.”  
  
Chad stomped up the ramp into the back of the U-Haul and glared at the mattress. “I suppose this is going upstairs.”  
  
“Just to the second floor,” Jared said.  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“Hey, at least the last owners left most of their furniture,” Jared said. “There’s all that we don’t have to carry.”  
  
“Well, aren’t you the glass is half full guy today?”  
  
“That’s me,” Jared said.  
  
“That used to be you,” Chad said. “Glad to see it coming back.”  
  
Jared didn’t reply. He just grabbed the mattress and started pulling it out of the back of the truck. “Here take the heavy end.”  
  
Chad chuckled. “Heavy end … Why are we friends?”  
  
“Good question.”  
  
Chad shook his head. “I swear…”  
  
“Okay,” Jared said. “Come on, let’s do this.”  
  
  
  
~~~

 

 

  
_Jensen dropped his toy truck on the concrete of the driveway and squatted down in front of Edward’s Lincoln. There were inky black feathers stuck to the grill. Stark white bone and small blossoms of red burst through in a couple places._  
  
_‘What’s black and white and red all under?’ he riffed on the silly joke._  
  
_Jensen grabbed the edge of a wing and pulled. There was some resistance, but he persisted, and the body finally swung free in his hand. He held it in front of his face and turned it this way and that._  
  
_It had a heart and a brain. Life. Crushed. “Where are you?” he whispered._  
  
_“Jensen Ross! Put that down!”_  
  
_He turned his head toward Elise who stood on the porch steps with her fists on her hips. As usual, she wore a simple apron over a dark shirtwaist dress with a cameo necklace. Her hair was pulled up in a French twist._  
  
_“I want to show it to Edward,” he said._  
  
_She stomped down the steps and stalked toward him. “Absolutely not.”_  
  
_He didn’t move as she approached. He just squatted there on the hot concrete with the bird by the wing._  
  
_“Put that nasty thing down,” she ordered. “Now!”_  
  
_Jensen stood and dropped the bird to the ground. She grabbed his shoulder and steered him toward the house. “Go wash your hands. No telling what kind of disease that thing might be carrying.”_  
  
_Jensen dragged his feet as she walked ahead of him._  
  
_“Elise, where do birds go when they die?”_  
  
_She turned and squinted at him. “Go?”_  
  
_“Yeah, if people go to heaven, where do birds go?”_  
  
_“Birds don’t go anywhere. They don’t have souls. Now get in here and wash up.” She held the screen door open for him. He went to the utility sink in the enclosed porch and climbed up on the little stool she kept there for him. He held his hands under the tap as she turned the water on. The chill of it made him shiver. She handed him a bar of Lava soap, and he rubbed the gritty cake between his palms._  
  
_“Is there really a God?” he asked._  
  
_She took the soap from him and put it back in the dish. “Of course, there’s a God, Jensen.”_  
  
_“Why don’t birds have souls then?” He rubbed and rolled his hands together, building up lather._  
  
_“They just don’t. Only people do. Now, hurry up.”_  
  
_“Only people?” Jensen frowned as he rinsed his hands. She gave him a terrycloth hand towel and waited for him to dry his hands. She hung it back on the metal towel bar that hung over the sink, and Jensen got down from his stool._  
  
_“I don’t think I like God,” he said to her back as they entered the kitchen._  
  
_“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “He is what he is. Would you like an apple?”_  
  
_“Yes, please.” Every Sunday he’d sit in a horsehair chair and squirm as Elise droned on about the one god, but Jensen knew better. He’d seen the book about Zeus and Hera and Poseidon in the doctor’s library._  
  
_While Jensen was commanded to pay attention to Elise’s Bible school, the doctor would sit with his glasses perched low on his nose reading the Sunday paper. When Elise had gone off to make dinner, the doctor, Edward, would give Jensen the comic section as a reward for “indulging my sister’s superstitions,” he’d said._  
  
_They were so different on Sunday morning than when  he’d watch them dance together in the parlor  at night when he was supposed to be in bed. The doctor’s hand on the small of her back, just the silk of her slip between his fingers and her flesh. Her hair would be loose, brushing his arm where his shirtsleeve was rolled up. She seemed to float. Her bare toes barely touched the floor as he spun her around._  
  
_She handed Jensen an apple and went to the sink to finish cleaning vegetables for dinner._  
  
_“Elise,” Jensen said. He squinted at her back wondering if she wore that silky black slip under her house dress._  
  
_“Yes, Jensen?”_  
  
_“Could we read a different book on Sunday?” He put his left foot on top of his right foot and balanced._  
  
_“Why would we do that?” She picked up a paring knife and began to trim carrots._  
  
_“I don’t like that god,” he said. “Could we read a book with different gods?”_  
  
_“Don’t be silly,” she said. “There’s only one God. We don’t get to pick and choose.”_  
  
_Jensen frowned. He put his left foot on the floor and his right foot on top of it. He took a bite of his apple and chewed the crisp morsel. He lost his balance and stumbled sideways a couple steps before regaining his balance._  
  
_He walked around the table, heel to toe, heel to toe, thinking about the lie. He stopped._  
  
_“Elise.”_  
  
_“Yes, Jensen,” she said as she moved the carrots to the cutting board._  
  
_“If I were God, birds would go to heaven; birds and dogs and cats…” He thought about the wasp which had stung him in the summer. He wasn’t so sure about those._  
  
_Elise turned around to face him. “Don’t question the ways of God, young man.” She gestured with the knife in her hand. “Now take your toy upstairs and change for dinner.”_  
  
_Jensen sighed and picked up his truck. He went upstairs to his room and found the cigar box he’d taken from the doctor’s trash can and emptied it of the stones and marbles, feathers and other treasure it held. That evening when Elise and Edward were reading in the study, he’d retrieve the blackbird from the driveway and placed it into the cigar box with a picture of Zeus that he’d surreptitiously torn from the doctor’s book. He gave it a burial in the grove east of the house._


	3. Chapter 3

“So what’s with this place?” Chad asked around a bite of pizza. A string of melted cheese dangled from his bottom lip. There were three slices of what was left of two large DiGiorno pizzas on the table.  
  
Jared took a swig of Kentucky Ale. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Come on, man. This big ol’ place, folks left all their stuff, rock bottom price…sounds like the start of a horror movie.”  
  
“The thought had occurred to me,” he admitted. “The realtor said that the previous owners thought it was haunted.”  
  
“Oh, no way!” Chad slammed his beer bottle down on the table. “Are you fucking kidding me? I knew this place had a creepy vibe.”  
  
“Chad, come on,” Jared said. “You don’t think the house is haunted. Remember the old mill and Parson House and all the other places we checked out in high school. The county infirmary? And how many ghosts did we find?”  
  
Chad rolled his eyes.  
  
“None, my man.” Jared said. “Zero.” He touched the tip of his thumb to his fingers in a circle.  
  
“Dude, we’ve never seen giant squid either.”  
  
Jared grinned. “You got me there, bro.”  
  
“Yep,” Chad with a grin. “But, man, how are you gonna find a guy in this podunk town?”  
  
Jared took a drink of beer to hide the scowl that threatened. “Who says I want one?”  
  
Expecting Chad to make a joke about his dick sending out an SOS, he was surprised when Chad instead said, “Come on, don’t do that. I know you. You’re not a player or a monk. All through high school and college…”  
  
“Let it go.” Jared dug his thumbnail into a scratch on the table top.  
  
“Okay, fine.” Chad sighed and took another drink. “Seriously though, it’s a great place for a B&B.”  
  
“You think, really?” Jared asked.  
  
“Yeah, I do. I mean, I’d go crazy out here in the middle of Bumfuck, Kentucky, but it’s not far from the city, it’s beautiful countryside, cool house, lots of history, the river…It seems like a great distance for weekend getaways for city folks.”  
  
“Yeah, I mean, I saw this place, and I just knew, you know?” Jared took a drink of beer. “I know you think it’s kind of creepy, but it just feels right to me – everything about it. This is the kind of house that I’ve dreamed of. Something about it being unoccupied and all the furniture with it; it’s like it’s just been waiting for me all this time. This place and the history of the area, all of it, it’s inspiring, you know? I really think I can get back to writing here.”  
  
Chad’s eyebrows had worked their way about halfway up his forehead. “Okay, well, I hope this works for you – great American novel and all.”  
  
Jared’s smile widened. “Thanks, Chad.”  
  
Chad shrugged and picked at a half-eaten piece of pizza. “You deserve it with everything that’s happened.” Chad cleared his throat. “You still seeing Dr. Huffman?”  
  
“Not as often,” Jared said. “Don’t need to, but yeah.”  
  
“Everything’s okay?” Chad asked. “No more nightmares or anxiety attacks?”  
  
“No, everything is good, great, in fact. I haven’t needed meds in weeks.”  
  
“That’s great. Just, you know, moving can be stressful. There’s nothing wrong with taking meds or talking to her, if you need to.”  
  
Jared sighed. “I know. I do, and I promise I will, if I need to.”  
  
“Okay, good,” Chad said. “Anyway, I better hit the road. Gotta get the U-Haul back today or pay extra.” Chad drained his beer bottle and set it down on the table.  
  
“Yeah, it’s getting late,” Jared said.  
  
Chad stood and stretched before heading down the hallway.  
  
“Don’t forget to fill it up with gas.” Jared followed him out. The sun had fallen behind the trees throwing long shadows across the lawn. Jared took three twenties out of his wallet and gave them to Chad.  
  
“Right,” Chad said. “Listen, man, if weird things start happening…do not call me. You are on your own.” He grinned.  
  
“See, that’s what has the women flocking to you, man, bravery. You has it.” Jared smirked.  
  
“You know it.” Chad stomped down the steps.  
  
“Hey, don’t go away mad…” Jared chuckled.  
  
Chad stopped and turned, all hint of humor gone. “Seriously, dude, if things start to go sideways, don’t be a stupid white person.”  
  
Jared nodded and crossed his heart.  
  
“All right,” Chad said. “Take care, man.”  
  
“Yeah, you too. Drive careful.”  
  
He waited for Chad to get into the U-Haul and watched the taillights of the big truck disappear around the curve in the drive before going back inside. He locked the front door and went back to the kitchen where he wrapped up the remaining slices of pizza and tossed the beer bottles into the recycling bin.  
  
He got a glass of water and another brownie before heading upstairs. What he needed was a shower and a good night’s sleep. That would require unpacking towels and sheets and making the bed. The main hallway upstairs was in deep shadow, and he flipped the light on. The fixtures in the back hall were either on a different switch or burnt out, but light fell from the doorway of his bedroom. He frowned. He didn’t remember turning it on, but he must have or maybe Chad had.  
  
He stopped in the doorway. The springs and mattress lay in the center of the room. The bed frame was still disassembled and leaned against the wall with boxes stacked in front of it.  
  
“Fuck it,” he mumbled. He found a box labeled linens and dragged out a set of sheets. He fitted them on the mattress and shook the top sheet out over it. Pillows were two boxes down. He slipped one into a case and tossed it onto the bed.  
  
Rummaging through another box, he found two framed photos. One was of two boys with soggy swim trunks and cherry Popsicle lips, their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders – him and Chad at the community pool in the fourth grade. While other friends had come and gone with barely a notice, Chad had stuck with him.  
  
The other photo was of a golden retriever; tail a blurred motion, smiling up at the camera. Lady. He touched a fingertip to the glass. “Hey, girl,” he murmured. He’d had her since before he met Chad, and the last time he saw her was the day he left for college. When he came home at Christmas break, she wasn’t there. His mother had been evasive at first, but in the end admitted having her put down. _Lady was old,_ she’d said. _She wasn’t well._ They’d killed his dog. _His_ dog. It should have been his decision. He’d packed up as much of his things as would fit in his old Chevy and left that weekend.  
  
_Nothing is permanent,_ he thought. _All things fall away._  
  
The image wavered before his eyes and a deep dark space opened in his chest. He set the photos side by side on the bureau, and he swiped at his eyes. “Good enough,” he announced to the empty room.  
  
Just across the hall was a full bathroom, one of the originals which had been fed with water pumped from a cistern in the back yard up to a smaller one in the attic and gravity fed to the tubs, sinks, and toilets. This bathroom had a big claw-foot tub with a shower and oblong shower curtain rod. A free-standing wood cabinet was set against the wall. A box of towels sat beside it. He unpacked and put them all away except two.  
  
Like the half-bath downstairs, this room had white fixtures and tile that ran two-thirds of the way up the wall. Above it, the wall had been painted dove gray – a shade lighter than his bedroom. His burgundy towels would go fine in here.  
  
Another box held hair care and shaving stuff, first aid supplies and the like. He set up his shampoo, conditioner and soap on the shelf by the shower. He started the water in the tub, and with a cough, it ran dark rusty red.  
  
“Ugh, come on,” he mumbled. “I guess Peters didn’t replace all the pipes.”  
  
He let the water run as he undressed. Slowly, it cleared, and he adjusted the temperature before stepping in. He pulled the shower curtains closed around him and turned the shower on. The opaque white curtains let plenty of light through. He let the warm water soak his hair, and he rolled his shoulders to relieve the stiffness that had set in from all the lifting and carrying.  
  
He had his back turned to the room as he picked up the shampoo and poured some into his hand. A shadow flickered across the curtain in front of him as though someone or something was behind him blocking the light. He froze. The shadow was gone as quickly as it had come. He heard nothing over the sound of the water. He turned and opened the curtain. There was no one there.  
  
He looked around the room. Nothing was out of place. The door was ajar, and he couldn’t remember if he’d closed it. He slid the curtain shut again and began to shampoo his hair.  
  
“Fucking Chad, putting wild ideas in my head.” He hummed a bit before singing, _Like the coldest winter chill, Heaven beside you..._  
  
  
  
  
  
Jensen wanted. He ached and yearned to touch. He’d tried to get a look of Jared wet and glistening in the spray of the shower but had to retreat. Now, as his boy lay sleeping, Jensen could get his fill.  
  
Jared groaned and arched against the mattress. _Sticky hands and a hot, wet mouth played over his skin. A clever tongue twisted its way across his belly and swept away the pool of sweat in his navel. His hips were held down as he was devoured._  
  
_Those strong hands left crimson prints across his skin. He couldn’t get a clear image of his lover – just an impression of bloody lips and savage eyes._  
  
Jensen hovered in the doorway watching his love writhe and moan on the mattress until his head was thrown back, long throat gasping in his pleasure. Jared’s fingers twisted in the sheets as his hips thrust upward. As he fell limp on the bed, a wet stain seeped through his boxers.  
  
Jensen licked his lips in anticipation.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
Jared spent the next morning unpacking, dusting, and making an inventory of items he’d need for repairs as well as a shopping list for food. He set up the stereo in the back parlor first, docked his iPod, and set it to shuffle. The volume was up high enough he could hear the music from almost anywhere on the first floor.  
  
The dust cloths got taken to the room off the kitchen that housed the washer, dryer, and a chest freezer. He hadn’t even plugged it in. He didn’t know if it worked, but he hoped so. He’d need it once he got the B &B going. As luck would have it, the large-capacity washer and drier had been purchased by the last owners and had seen little use.  
  
Jared unconsciously hummed or sang along as the songs shuffled, sometimes breaking into full voice. _I’m not gonna lie._ He sat cross-legged on the floor and placed books into the bookshelves in the study off the back parlor. _I’ll not be a gentleman, behind the boathouse, I’ll show you… …my dark secret…_ His voice trailed off as the song continued playing.  
  
The study was comfortable, with a big oak desk and creaky old office chair. Two leather wingback chairs with hassocks set on a plush Persian rug, and heavy velvet drapes in moss green hung at the windows. He could almost envision one of the doctors Black sitting at the desk with spectacles perched on his nose, a glass of bourbon at hand, as he made notes. There’d be a dog, something big and placid, lying beside the fireplace.  
  
Jared considered making this his writing space, but it didn’t feel quite right. It felt like someone else’s room. He could see himself sitting quietly in a wingback, reading and sipping bourbon as the doctor worked. He smiled at his daydream and got back to work filling the bookcase.  
  
He turned the copy of Lovecraft’s _At the Mountains of Madness_ over in his hands. It had once had a dust cover with 1960’s psychedelic art, which had been lost at some point, and the green cover was worn at the edges. He opened it and looked at the familiar inscription on the flyleaf.  
  
_To my favorite son,  
   Never let go of your dreams..  
   —Dad _  
  
Jared was an only child, and “favorite son” had been a stupid joke his father had been fond of. “Pfft,” Jared scoffed and snapped the book closed. He put it on the shelf between the _Complete Works of William_ _Shakespeare_ and the _Norton Anthology of Eighteenth Century British Literature_. “Fuck you, old man.”  
  
He rose to his full six-feet, four-inches and raised his arms over his head. He arched his back and groaned at the full stretch. As he dropped his arms, he scratched his belly where his sweat pants rode low on his hips. His stomach took that opportunity to growl. The digital clock on the stereo receiver said it was nearly noon. He decided to wash up and head to town.

 

 

 

 

  
He stepped into the half-bathroom downstairs. His hands were gray with dust. He turned on the tap at the pedestal sink and held his hands under the stream of water waiting for it to turn warm. There were no windows in this bathroom, and the bright white tile and fixtures kept the small space from being oppressive. The plaster above the tile was painted a deep forest green, and he’d used a combination of emerald and pistachio green accent towels and rug to give it color.  
  
The water began to get warm, and he reached for the soap, but rather than the white bar of Ivory he’d left, there were little decorative soaps in the dish – purple hearts. His hand hovered over the dish a moment before he picked one up and sniffed it. It smelled like lavender.  
  
“Huh,” he murmured. The sound of his own voice made him huff out a breath. He almost giggled. He plunged his hands under the water and rubbed the tiny soap till a creamy lather built up. He thought he’d left Ivory soap in the dish. Who could have put the decorative soaps in there? Lola? Surely, he’d have noticed before. The scent of lavender filled the small room. He tipped the soap back onto the dish, rinsed his hands, and dried them on a pistachio green towel.  
  
But he paused with his hand on the doorknob. He glanced back at the soap dish. The shadow last night might have been his imagination, but this was real. He thought about taking the meds. He thought about calling Dr. Huffman, but he knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t delusional. Hallucinations were never a part of the problem.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
_Jensen slumped back in his chair and twirled his fork between his fingers while Elise moved around the kitchen preparing a dinner tray for the doctor and cleaning up the dishes._  
  
_“Finish your food,” she said as she passed by._  
  
_He pushed some green beans across his plate and frowned._  
  
_She scraped the scraps from her own plate into the trash and dropped it into the sink. Dishwater splashed over onto the counter._  
  
_“Sit up straight, Jensen,” she said. “And finish eating.”_  
  
_“I’m finished,” he said. “May I be excused?”_  
  
_“No, you may not,” she said. “I know that you’re disappointed that Edward is working on your birthday, but you aren’t a child anymore. You’re fourteen, and you need to understand that you aren’t the center of the universe. His patients come before you or me.”_  
  
_Jensen bit his lip. She sighed and dropped her hands from her hips. “Aren’t you the moody one?” She picked up his plate with its remaining vegetables and potatoes and went to the sink with it. She returned to the table with a small round cake decorated in white with a ‘14’ in blue icing._  
  
_“Happy birthday,” she said. She cut a slice and put it on a saucer for him. She set the saucer on the table before him and stepped back with her hands folded in front of her. “Devil’s food, just like you like.”_  
  
_“Thank you,” he mumbled. He picked up his fork automatically, but his hand twitched and the tines clanged against the edge of the saucer._  
  
_Elise startled. “Oh, for God’s sake, what is wrong with you? Just eat.” She turned away to finish the washing up._  
  
_He didn’t want to eat it, but it was devil’s food and the smell was too enticing. He watched her from the corner of his eye and took a bite when she wasn’t looking. Of course, it was delicious like everything she cooked._  
  
_He looked up as the door swung open and a tall, dark-haired man entered. He was thin, almost gaunt, with a hawkish nose and the dark attentive eyes of a crow. Elise grabbed up her apron and wiped her hands. “Edward, I…is everything all right?”_  
  
_“Fine, fine,” he said. “Smells delicious, as always, dear sister.” His gaze swept the room and came to rest on Jensen. “I’m afraid my research has upset someone’s celebration.”_  
  
_Elise stood twisting her apron in her hands as Dr. Black approached Jensen. He held a wrapped package about the size and shape of a narrow book. “Happy birthday, Jensen,” he said as he set it on the table beside Jensen’s dessert plate. Then he swept his finger through some cake icing and popped it into his mouth._  
  
_“Wonderful!” he declared before turning on his heel and going out just as he’d come in – through the pantry._  
  
_Elise rushed to the door and pushed it ajar. “I’ll bring your tray downstairs, shall I?”_  
  
_“Do that!” Dr. Black yelled back._  
  
_There was silence for a moment as Jensen stared at the package._  
  
_Elise cleared her throat. “That was thoughtful of the doctor.”_  
  
_“Yeah,” Jensen agreed without enthusiasm. Edward used to get him wonderful gifts – an insect collection kit, a chemistry set, books on anatomy, natural history, and his favorite on mythology. There was a book with wonders of the world that he’d spent hours dreaming over when he was younger. He’d imagined exploring Machu Picchu and Petra._  
  
_“Well, go ahead and open your gift, Jensen.” She smoothed her apron and approached the table._  
  
_He fiddled with the box, but didn’t pick it up. “Did you tell him?”_  
  
_“No,” she said. “No, he remembered. Why…Go ahead then.”_  
  
_Jensen picked up the package wrapped in dark green paper. He pulled the gold ribbon off. Jensen tore the paper away revealing a leather-clad case. It was old and scuffed. He frowned but twisted the catch and opened the lid. Within lay a set of gleaming instruments – hemostats, scissors, a scalpel and blades._  
  
_“Oh!” Elise exclaimed. She twisted her apron in her hands. “Well, isn’t that exciting?”_  
  
_Jensen nodded and set the case on the table. His cake forgotten, he ran a fingertip along the cool handle of the scalpel. Light glinted off the blade, and Jensen stroked the flat of the blade. He thought of all the times he’d watched the doctor make an incision, blood welling up in the wake of the blade. Elise slipped the case from beneath his hand and closed the lid._  
  
_“Put this away for now,” she said. “Eat your cake.”_  
  
_Jensen looked up at her and blinked as though awaking._  
  
_“This is special, you know?” Elise said and tapped the lid of the kit. “Recognition of you growing up.”_  
  
_Jensen shrugged. “I guess, but…”_  
  
_“But what?”_  
  
_“Why?” he peered up at her._  
  
_“Well…” She rubbed chocolate from the corner of his mouth with her thumb. “All the Black sons became doctors, and you’re the closest he has to a son. I expect you to thank him later when he’s come up from his work. Understand?”_  
  
_“Yes, ma’am.”_  
  
  
  
  
  
_The night was warm, and a lazy breeze barely stirred the curtains at Jensen’s window. He’d stripped down to his boxers and was propped up in bed reading when Elise opened the door without so much as a knock._  
  
_“The doctor is in his study,” she said._  
  
_“Okay,” Jensen said without looking up._  
  
_She didn’t move from the doorway. “Go down and thank him, now.” She emphasized the last word in a way that made him grit his teeth._  
  
_“I’m not even dressed,” he said._  
  
_“You shouldn’t have gotten undressed,” she said. “You knew you needed to do this. Now, get up and go.”_  
  
_“Fine,” he murmured as tossed the book aside._  
  
_“Quit sulking,” she said._  
  
_“I didn’t even want the stupid gift,” he said as he snagged a pair of pants the floor. It was a lie, of course, but he wanted more than a gift wrapped package._  
  
_“How dare you be so ungrateful after the way the doctor and I have taken you in like our own.” Her knuckles were white where she clutched the door knob. “After everything we’ve done for you!”_  
  
_He tipped his head to the side and his brow furrowed as he observed her. Her once glossy hair was dull, and tendrils had come loose from the bun at the back of her neck to hang limp from the steamy kitchen around her eyes. They’d faded too; not the color, but the light. Lines bracketed her mouth, which he remembered smiling and laughing._  
  
_“What?” she asked._  
  
_He shook his head. “Nothing.” He stepped into his pants and pulled them up. “I just…I’m sorry,” he said without looking up._  
  
_“I know the doctor worked later than we thought and you were settled in for the night, but it will only take a moment,” she said._  
  
_“Yes, it’s okay,” he said. He pulled on the first shirt at hand and started for the door._  
  
_She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair and pushed a few strands behind his ears. “There,” she said._  
  
_Jensen jerked away without meaning to, and she frowned. She was watching him, taking in the old trousers and rumpled shirt. He knew from the tightness around her eyes, she didn’t approve, but she didn’t say anything._  
  
_‘What do you want from me?’ he wanted to ask, but he just walked past her and down the hallway. He didn’t bother turning the lights on, and he didn’t go down the back stairs. He took the wide oak staircase to the darkened foyer. He knew every inch of the first floor and much of the rest of the house in the dark. He knew its secrets. It was his house in a way that it would never be anyone else’s—or so he imagined._  
  
_Jensen ghosted his way across the foyer and down the hallway to the eastern most room of the house. The door to Dr. Black’s study was open. The doctor sat in a leather wing-back. The neck of his shirt was open and the cuffs turned back. He held a tumbler of whiskey._  
  
_“Excuse me, sir,” Jensen said._  
  
_The doctor’s gaze swept up and down, taking in Jensen’s ratty jeans and shirt. He could feel the judgment in it, and he fought the urge to squirm. “What is it, Jensen?”_  
  
_“I, um, I wanted to thank you for the gift,” he said._  
  
_“Do you?” Black took a sip of whiskey._  
  
_“Yes, I, it’s very nice. Thank you, sir.”_  
  
_“You’re welcome,” the doctor said._  
  
_“Well, good night then,” Jensen said and started to slip back into the darkened hallway._  
  
_“Jensen.”_  
  
_“Yes?” For some reason his heart kicked up a bit._  
  
_“I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm, my boy,” Edward said. “You were always quite good at anatomy and chemistry, and you’ve been observing long enough. I’d like to begin showing you more of my work and letting you assist me. Would you like that?”_  
  
_Jensen’s heart kicked up a notch. It was almost too much to hope for. “Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I would, sir. Very much.”_  
  
_Black smiled. “Good, good. You can join me tomorrow then. Is it a date?”_  
  
_Jensen was at a loss for words. He felt heat rising in his cheeks. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He spun and escaped into the dark._  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
  
The sky was slightly overcast and the air held the promise of rain as Jared's truck rolled down Main Street. He found a parking place across the street from Bishop’s Southern Café. Lola’s Cadillac was parked in front of the realty office half a block farther down. Almost everything he needed was within walking distance of where he parked.  
  
A bell chimed as he opened the café door. An elderly couple was leaving, and he held the door for them.  
  
“Thank you, young man,” the lady said.  
  
“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Jared smiled. “Y’all have a good day.” The elderly man kept one hand firmly on his wife’s elbow and touched the bill of his cap with the other.  
  
There were rows of booths down each wall and tables with chairs down the center. The carpet was worn thin down the aisles. The lunch rush was just about over, and many of the tables were empty but for dirty dishes. A bus boy was pushing a cart and clearing them away. At the back was a counter with stools and a cash register at one end. He walked back and slipped onto a stool, careful not to bang his knees.  
  
An African-American woman in jeans and a blue polo shirt with _Bishop’s_ stitched in yellow on it came over and wiped the counter in front of him with a wet towel. “Something to drink, baby?”  
  
“Yeah, a Coke?”  
  
“We got Pepsi products.”  
  
“Okay, um, a Mountain Dew then.”  
  
“You got it. Need a menu?”  
  
“Yeah, please.”  
  
She grabbed one from beside the register and handed him a single laminated sheet with breakfast items on one side and lunch on the other. He looked over the menu while she got his drink. It was the usual diner food – burgers, fried chicken sandwich, BLT, club sandwich, cod and fries, chicken fried steak.  
  
The server set his drink down with a paper-wrapped straw beside it. “You decided what you want, baby?” She cocked her hip against the counter and held her pen to her receipt book.  
  
“Yeah, I think I’ll have the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.”  
  
“Uh-huh. That comes with corn pudding and green beans or soup beans?”  
  
“The green beans are good?”  
  
“Best in the county.” She almost sounded offended by the question.  
  
“Green beans.”  
  
“Cornbread or dinner roll?”  
  
“Cornbread. How is that even a choice?” Jared grinned.  
  
“I hear you.” She smiled back and picked up his menu. “I’ll get that right in for you, baby. You let me know if you need anything.”  
  
There was a comfortable bustle of activity around him as he sat and sipped his drink. The server filled ketchup bottles at the back counter, and when she saw he’d drank nearly all his soda, she offered more.  
  
“Thanks,” he said as she sat the full glass in front of him.  
  
“That’s a lot of sugar and caffeine,” she warned him.  
  
“Yeah, that’s okay,” he said. “I’ll work it off.”  
  
“You the one that bought the old Black place?” she asked.  
  
“Yeah, I am. Jared Padalecki.”  
  
“Nice to meet you, Jared. I’m Nita. My parents own this place. They’re semi-retired.” She dropped her voice as though “retired” was a swear word someone would overhear. “My sister and I help ‘em out, but our daddy is still in charge, if you know what I mean. Here comes the old cuss now.” She was looking toward the front of the diner and her eyes widened. “Daddy, what is it?”  
  
The man who slid onto the stool beside Jared had pure white hair and a ramrod straight spine. He looked fit to be tied.  
  
“I don’t know what the hell this world is coming too, baby girl,” he said. “Get me a cup of coffee.”  
  
Nita grabbed the pot from behind her along with a cup and saucer. “What in the world’s going on?” she asked as she filled the cup.  
  
He picked it up and slurped some of the hot liquid. “Massey’s boy, Drew, he’s been killed.”  
  
“His poor mama. A car accident?” she asked. “Nice boy but wild,” she said by way of explanation to Jared.  
  
“No,” the old man said. “Wasn’t no accident. Murdered.”  
  
Nita’s hand flew to her mouth. “What? Are they sure?”  
  
“Yeah, they’re sure.”  
  
“But why?” Nita said. “Was it drugs?”  
  
“No, I don’t think so. He was cut up.”  
  
“Stabbed?” Jared asked.  
  
The old man looked at him as though he hadn’t realized before that Jared was there. “Who are you?”  
  
“Daddy, this is Jared…something. He bought the old Black house up on the hill. This is my father, Jeremiah Bishop.”  
  
“Jared Padalecki. Nice to meet you, sir.”  
  
“Hmph.” Bishop just stared at Jared a moment. “No, he wasn’t stabbed. He was _butchered_.”  
  
“You mean he was dismembered?”  
  
“That’s right. Cut up in pieces.”  
  
“Okay, Daddy, we get the picture.”  
  
“Nita! You gonna get this man’s food, or what?” someone called from the kitchen. Nita bustled away.  
  
“And here I thought I was moving to a quiet little town,” Jared said.  
  
Bishop shook his head and took a sip of coffee. “Can’t believe it. Found the kid down at the old distillery. Parts of him anyway.”  
  
“They aren’t sure?”  
  
“I guess, they’ll have to take inventory,” Bishop said. He side-eyed Jared.  
  
“Right.”  
  
Nita emerged from the kitchen with a plate laden with chicken and mashed potatoes smothered in milk gravy and a side of green beans. In a separate dish was a portion of corn pudding.  
  
“Wow, this looks delicious,” Jared said.  
  
Nita beamed at him. “Anything else I can get you, baby?”  
  
“I think I’m good. Thanks.”  
  
“White people,” Bishop said.  
  
“Daddy,” Nita scolded.  
  
“Our folks might stab each other or shoot each other, but we don’t do nothing like what was done to that boy.” He held his cup in both hands and slurped loudly.  
  
Jared chewed a bite of green beans. They were cooked soft, almost dry, and seasoned with bacon, just like his mama used to make. “I can’t argue with that, Mr. Bishop.”  
  
“Course you can’t. It’s the truth,” the old man said. “That kind of butchery is white man’s work.”  
  
Nita lifted her shoulders and shuddered. “Uh, let’s change the subject.”  
  
“Okay.” Jared cleared his throat. “Maybe you can tell me a little about the area. I’m planning on turning the house into a bed and breakfast, and I was hoping for some local interest to attract folks.”  
  
“Well.” Nita looked dubious. “There’s not a lot that goes on around here to be honest.”  
  
“Local festivals?” Jared prompted.  
  
“Court Days,” she said. “That’s in September.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“The county judge used hold court on minor offenses, and the day he had court was when folks would come to town. Vendors would set up around the courthouse green. Folks bought and traded and bartered. Nowadays, the county judge is an administrative position, and Court Days is a once a year festival. More of a big flea market as anything, but there’s turtle races for the kids. Music and a beer garden. Cornhole competitions.”  
  
Living in Cincinnati, Jared had heard of cornhole, a game where teams try to throw bean bags through holes in a target board, but he couldn’t help smirking at the name anyway.  
  
Nita’s lip curled. “I don’t know what ever happened to playing horse shoes.”  
  
“You know how much drunk men could injure one another with horse shoes?” Jared chuckled.  
  
“You’re probably right,” Nita agreed.  
  
“So, I noticed a museum when I came through town.”  
  
“The Underground Railroad Museum? Yeah, my Auntie Nona runs it, and she can spin a yarn. You’d think you were there with the dogs chasing you and the Ohio River between you and freedom.”  
  
“Really? She sounds amazing,” Jared said. “Do you know the hours the museum’s open?”  
  
Nita scoffed. “When she feels like it. She’s eighty-two, and she moves at her own pace.”  
  
“Maybe I’ll stop by after lunch and see if she’s around.”  
  
“That’s the only way you’ll catch her,” Nita grinned. “Now eat up before your lunch gets cold.”  
  
  
  
  
  
The museum was on the way to the hardware store. It was a small one-story brick building with columns supporting the portico and sat on a grassy lot beside a funeral home. Passing beneath lofty oaks, Jared climbed the steps to the portico and found an ‘open’ sign in the window. He swung open the leaded-glass door.  
  
Inside it was cool and bright. The vestibule was painted all white and had dark wood floors. A stocky woman in blue pedal-pushers and a white blouse rose from an old oak desk. She met him halfway across the vestibule. She had the gate of someone with a sore hip and the eyes of a hungry sparrow.  
  
“Afternoon,” she said as she slipped a bookmark into the book she’d had open before her. “Can I help you find anything?”  
  
“Yeah, I recently moved here, and I’m interested in learning some of the local history,” Jared said. “Nita said you could help me.”  
  
She smiled at the mention of her niece’s name. “Did she now? Well then…”  she said. “You bought the Black house. Am I right?” She didn’t wait for answer but continued as she walked toward a bookcase nearby that had glass doors. She took a set of keys from her sweater pocket and chose a key. “You’ll want to see this.” There was an edge of excitement in her voice. She fitted a key in the lock and opened the glass door. Her hands went immediately to a tall slender volume, which she pulled from the case. She turned and presented it to Jared.  
  
It was scuffed and worn and discolored from age, but not ancient. The simple gold imprint on the cover suggested it was from the 1950s or ‘60s. _The History of Black House_ it read.  
  
“These are quite rare,” she said. “So I’m afraid you can’t check it out, but you’re welcome to sit down at a table and peruse it. The library is open until four o’clock today.”  
  
“Wow, there’s a history of the house?”  
  
“Well, it’s more of a history of the family, but the two are one, aren’t they?” she asked. She led Jared to a table in the corner and set the book down. “I hope you won’t be disappointed. There’s nothing scandalous in it.”  
  
“There’s never anything scandalous in the official version is there?” Jared said with a wink.  
  
“Isn’t that the truth?” she said with an arched eyebrow. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need anything.”  
  
“Thank you,” Jared said. He sat down at the long library table. Its top gleamed from decades of polishing. There was something intimidating about the fact that not a single fingerprint showed on the glossy surface. He’d try to avoid marring that perfection. He opened the book to the beginning when William Louis Black first arrived and built a cabin near Poplar Creek, the stream that ran past his house and through the village, which was then called Charters. As the first doctor in the settlement, his practice grew with the town.  
  
It was this settler’s son, Henry Louis Black, who built the Federal-style house on the hill. In ten years, Black went from owning ten slaves to two. When Confederate forces reached Gantley County, the abolitionist Methodist College in town was bombed and the first Black House was burned. In a show of support for their local doctor, the town rallied around Dr. Black and aided him in building the three-story Queen Anne now known as Black House. The two remaining slaves, Adam and Peggy, lived into their eighties and died under the roof of Black House. The knowledge gave Jared a chill.  
  
In the early twentieth century, when the small hospital in town grew too crowded, the third floor of the house became  an infirmary for tuberculosis patients, shell-shocked soldiers returning from World War I, and children with polio. One generation after another of Dr. Blacks brought patients with debilitating and deadly contagions into the home of his wife and children. A knot of dread grew in Jared’s chest as he read on. While the doctors’ altruism was admirable, their indifference to the wellbeing of their families was horrifying. Time and again, the history recounted stories of wives succumbing to consumption, children crippled by polio, and a little girl drowned in a well by a hallucinating soldier.  
  
If a house had any reason to be haunted, it was Black House, Jared thought. It was easy to imagine the ghosts of slaves, suffering patients and dying children. And yet, he’d never had a sense of anything threatening in the house. He sat staring at the blurred type of the book as he thought of the strange occurrences in the house – the soap hearts and the shadow in the bathroom.  
  
He rose and returned the book to the circulation desk.  
  
“Thank you so much, ma’am,” he said. “Very interesting.”  
  
“You’re quite welcome,” she said as she took the book back. “It’s Padalecki, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am. Jared.”  
  
“And you can call me Nona,” she said.  
  
Jared still had a lot of errands to run, but he was curious. “May I ask you something?”  
  
“Of course,” Nona said.  
  
“I understand why the Confederate troops bombed the college, them being abolitionists and all, but why would they have burned Black House?”  
  
Nona’ eyes sparkled. “Why? Because it was a stop on the Underground Railroad, of course.”  
  
“But Dr. Black owned slaves, even after the war,” Jared said.  
  
“Adam and Peggy, yes,” she said. “We have their manumission papers. They chose to stay with the Blacks anyway. They were instrumental in helping conduct people in this area.”  
  
“I see. Thanks.”  
  
“Feel free to come by any time,” Nona said. “It’s so nice to see young people with an interest in history, and if you should find anything in the attic or a closet that might be of interest to the community, I assure you we will take it on loan or as part of our collection.”  
  
“Absolutely,” Jared said. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to go through the things stored in the attic.”  
  
Nona’s eyes sparkled. “Wonderful. You have a good day.”  
  
“You too, thank you.”  
  
The heat of the July day hit him as he left the museum. Jared made a stop at the hardware store for wood screws and roofing nails before driving to the small strip mall a few blocks down. He was relieved to see there weren’t a lot of cars in the lot. He ran into the sundries store for cleaning supplies and shelf liner paper, which he dropped off at the truck before heading into the IGA supermarket.  
  
He grabbed a cart as he went in and made a quick sweep of the store following his list – bread, sliced cheese, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, mayo, milk, chips, Cheerios, another package of toilet paper and a big package of paper towels. He got a box of doughnuts at the bakery and an eight-piece box of fried chicken at the deli, a pound of roast beef and another of ham before taking the winding road back to Black House.


	4. Chapter 4

_Jensen was perched on a tall stool. The heels of his shoes were hooked on a rung and his elbows on his knees. He wore a surgical mask as he observed Edward who was bent over a patient draped in white cloth on the table._  
  
_“Primum non nocere,” Edward said. “’First, do no harm’ – the first principle of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath too warns ‘to abstain from doing harm.’ These are not to be taken literally.” Edward’s scalpel made an incision down the center of the patient’s abdomen. “The goal is to not do more harm than good. Of course, one never knows…” The hand with the scalpel waved in the air for emphasis. “One never knows for sure what the outcome will be, but the intent, the intent, Jensen, is to heal with as little harm as possible.”_  
  
_“Yes, sir,” Jensen said._  
  
_“I need your assistance now,” Edward said._  
  
_Jensen slipped from the tall stool and went to stand opposite the doctor. He was already gloved and wearing a white gown over his clothes._  
  
_“Who is the Greek god of medicine?” Edward asked._  
  
_“Asclepius,” Jensen said._  
  
_“Clamp,” Edward said._  
  
_Jensen effectively clamped the artery._  
  
_“Good.” The doctor pulled the skin and muscle back. “Asclepius had five daughters.”_  
  
_“Hygieia, Aceso, Algaea, Iaso, and Panacea,” Jensen said, “and three sons – Machaon, Podaleiros, and the dwarf Telesphoros. The cult of Asclepius became popular beginning in the fifth century BC, and people would go to his temples for purification rituals.”_  
  
_“Mm-hmm, the Greeks were big on rituals,” the doctor said._  
  
_“Non-venomous snakes would slither around free in these temples and areas where the patients were – Asclepian Snakes – in honor of the god, and dogs would sometimes lick the wounds of the sick.”_  
  
_“Clamp. Here we have the uterus. It should be pink and healthy, yes? But you see these adhesions. This is the source of her pain.”_  
  
_“How did you know?”_  
  
_“Experience, my boy,” Edward said. “Now the common treatment is to remove the organ, but this young woman would like to have children. Rather than become infertile, she has chosen an experimental treatment.”_  
  
_The doctor picked up an instrument of his own design that looked to Jensen like a cross between a scalpel and a soldering iron._  
  
_“Who is your favorite Greek god?” the doctor asked. The smell of burning flesh rose from the body cavity._  
  
_“It’s hard to choose,” Jensen said, but he could think of only one honest answer._  
  
_“The first that comes to mind.”_  
  
_“Eros.”_  
  
_“Ah, the god of desire, indeed? I’ve always preferred him to the Roman depiction as Cupid.”_  
  
_“Black-winged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Darkness,” said Jensen, “and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Hell-Pit with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race – the birds.”_  
  
_“Not our race, Jensen.”_  
  
_“No, The Birds.”_  
  
_“Aristophanes, yes. In other traditions, Eros was the son of Aphrodite,” Edward said. “Interesting distinction between the Greeks and Romans, no? Eros was a young man whose arrows incited desire while Cupid became the common Valentine’s Day chubby baby inspiring love in the bosom of the intended. By either name, he caused no end of trouble for humans and gods alike.”_  
  
_The stench continued to fill the air as the doctor worked._  
  
_“And what do you think of the story of Eros and Psyche?” he asked._  
  
_Without pausing to think, Jensen said, “Who wouldn’t want a god to fall in love with them?”_  
  
_“Indeed. So you would cast yourself in the role of Psyche?”_  
  
_Jensen felt heat rising in his cheeks._  
  
_“And why not? Then you would become immortal too, yes?”_  
  
_“I, yes, I guess so.”_  
  
_“Never guess, Jensen. It shows a lack of decisiveness.”_  
  
_Jensen looked into the body cavity. The uterus was now covered, not with adhesions, but with irregular burn marks. Edward was nothing if not decisive._  
  
_“That’s all of them,” Edward said._  
  
_Jensen observed as the doctor picked up a needle and surgical thread and began stitching muscle back together. When the wound was closed except for the initial incision through the skin, the doctor looked up at Jensen for the first time since the procedure had begun._  
  
_“You can finish up.”_  
  
_“Me?”_  
  
_“You’ve been doing an excellent practicing job on the pig skin,” Edward said. “You’re more than ready. Go on…”_  
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
When Jared got home, he put the perishables into the refrigerator, and then lined the shelves in the pantry with shelf paper before putting the canned goods and boxed items away.   
  
He lined the upper cabinets with shelf paper and put away his dishes and glasses. The drawers followed and then the lower cabinets. With everything put away, he stepped back and surveyed the room. It definitely needed some sprucing up. The daisy wallpaper was from the 1970s and the linoleum had yellowed, but it had lots of counter space and the appliances worked. As if to prove it, the Frigidaire hummed noisily to life.   
  
He’d taken a break about halfway through to eat three pieces of fried chicken and some potato chips with a Coke. By the time he was finished, he gave in to the temptation and ate a doughnut and a glass of milk while leaning over the sink. The light had faded from the backyard, and all Jared could see was a ghost of himself in the window.   
  
He rinsed the milk from his glass and left it in the sink, checked the lock on the backdoor, and turned off the light. Making sure he had his cell phone with him, he checked the front door lock and climbed the stairs. He’d forgotten to fix the lights in the back hallway, but once again, there was light coming from his bedroom. He was sure this time that he hadn’t left it on, and no one else had been there to turn it on.   
  
He stopped in the doorway and looked around. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. His bed frame still leaned against the wall, and sheets on his mattress were wadded up as near as he could remember having left them that morning. He raked his fingers back through his hair. He needed to get the bedroom situated. That was on tomorrow morning’s agenda. He glanced up at the light in the center of the ceiling. It was old, and maybe the wiring was loose. There had to be a logical explanation for why it kept coming on.   
  
He put his phone on the bureau, grabbed fresh underwear, and crossed the hall to the bathroom. A warm shower would ease his stiff muscles and relax him for sleep. Even before he flipped the light on, he noticed an oddly cloying metallic order. There was a smear of red on the edge of the sink. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and his heartbeat quickened.   
  
He eased forward until he could see into the bowl of the sink. Printed in slashes of cherry red were the words, _I adore you_. With a gasp, he took a step back. His boxers fell from his hand as he took another step and fumbled for the light switch. The room went dark as he backed into the hallway.   
  
He rushed down the hall and nearly fell down the stairs in his haste. He found the box he was looking for in the dining room. It was small and contained odds and ends from the bathroom – gauze, extra soap, a bottle of Tylenol, assorted disposable razors. He upended the box onto the floor and scrabbled for the brown prescription bottle rolling away from him. He shook a pill out into his palm and swallowed it dry. Only one more left.   
  
He knelt there on the hardwood floor with his hands on his knees, panting. He tried to get his breathing under control. He shut his eyes, but he could see the image burned onto his retina.   
  
“No,” he said and rose to his feet. He went into the kitchen and flipped on the light over the sink. His ghostly reflection in the window made him flinch. He grabbed a rocks glass from the cabinet and went into the back parlor. Along with the other furniture, the former owners had left an ornate art deco bar that he’d put his couple bottles of bourbon and one of tequila in. He poured himself a generous amount of Wild Turkey and turned the stereo on.   
  
_I'm losing ground  
you know how this world can beat you down _  
  
With just the light spilling in from the hallway, he collapsed into a comfortable arm chair and sipped his bourbon.   
  
  
  
  
  
Jared awoke in the same chair with a stiff neck and dry mouth. There was a knot of pain behind his eyes and a nearly empty bottle of bourbon on the table beside him.   
  
He pushed himself from the chair and went into the kitchen. Squinting against the morning sunlight slanting in the windows, he ran a glass of water from the tap and sipped it. He waited a moment to see how his stomach would react, and when it seemed okay, he drank the rest of the glassful.   
  
He refilled the glass, got a packet of headache powders from the upper cabinet and tore the end off. He poured the contents under his tongue and downed the glass of water. He grimaced at the bitter taste left in his mouth, but he knew from experience, that by the time he got upstairs his headache would already begin to ease.   
  
His legs felt weak as he climbed the stairs, and he approached the bathroom warily. His boxers still lay on the white tile where he’d dropped them. The room had looked like a bloody operating room in the harsh electric illumination the night before, but with morning light falling through the window above the tub, it took on a soft, almost lavender luminosity.   
  
The sink was pristine. He ran his finger over it, unconsciously tracing his fingertip over the words that must have been in his imagination. The glaze had worn off the old porcelain and it felt velvety to the touch. _No,_ he thought, _it was real. ‘I adore you.’_ But it couldn’t be. He shook his head. He’d never had hallucinations.   
  
_I should call Dr. Huffman,_ he thought as he stripped down with bathroom door wide open because this was his house.   
  
  
  
  
  
Jensen had been bewildered by the Jared’s reaction to his message of devotion. What could be more serious, more permanent than to write it in blood? They were so alike. Why didn’t Jared understand? All he could do was watch and learn about his love.   
  
Jared set his laptop on the desk in the study and set a glass of bourbon beside it. He sat down in the old office chair that had last been used by Edward Black more than ten years ago. He opened the laptop and pressed the power button. As he waited for it to boot, he took a sip of bourbon and looked around the room.   
  
Jensen looked over Jared’s shoulder at his fingers on the keys, but couldn’t catch the password as he typed it in. He opened a new document and saved it as the _house.chptr 1_. He sat with his fingers poised on the keys for a few moments and then took another drink. The warm oakey scent drifted up. Jensen imagined Jared’s hair would smell a little like that. He wanted to press his face into it, feel it on his skin.   
  
Jared’s fingers began to move on the keys then. _In this house, I feel that I’m not alone. I sense him everywhere…the caress of a gaze, the faint smell of bay rum. At any moment, I expect to hear a voice, nearly a growl that sets my heart racing. I can almost feel the hot breath of a jungle cat on my neck. Will it bite or purr?_   
  
“Ugh,” Jared grunted and deleted the last line. He tossed back the bourbon and pushed himself away from the desk. “What crap.” He pushed his fingers back through his hair and paced. “Don’t critique. Just write,” he said aloud. “Don’t undermine yourself.”   
  
There were three books on an otherwise empty shelf that Jared hadn’t looked closely at before – an early edition of Dickens’ _Great Expectations_ , George Eliot’s _Middlemarch_ , and _The Language of Flowers and Symbols of Sentiment_ by Lady Priscilla Stafford. Jared picked up the latter and turned to a random page. _Larkspur denotes fickleness_. “Huh,” he said. _Poppies indicate the consolation of sleep_. “Well, that explains The Wizard of Oz.” Nightshade symbolizes dark thoughts. “Go figure. Ranunculus? What the fuck is that?”   
  
He paged farther back and found entries on antlers, which represented strength, and crows, the protection of friends. Dogs, of course, meant loyalty, and snakes, everlasting love and wisdom. “No kidding?” He closed the book and replaced it on the shelf.   
  
Jensen knew that book almost by heart. The Victorians were brilliant at the use of symbolic language as a means of expressing concepts and emotions. It was elegant and beautiful – so often better than words at conveying the complexity of feelings. Jensen was disappointed that Jared had misunderstood his love letter in blood. All he could do was keep trying.   
  
  
  
  
  
Jared sipped coffee and munched on a chocolate-iced cake doughnut as he lined the skillet with strips of bacon. He’d awakened with his shorts glued to his privates for the second time in as many days, but the dream was lost except for a feeling of apprehension and arousal. He kept trying to find the thread that would pull it back to consciousness, but it was lost.   
  
He didn’t understand it; he hadn’t had a wet dream since he was a teenager. Chad was right, he wasn’t a player. Not that he hadn’t had his share of hook ups, he was a healthy guy, but he didn’t like them. They left him feeling hollow and unsatisfied. He’d had a few boyfriends in college but couldn’t connect in a meaningful way with any of them. With the exception of Chad, he didn’t connect with anyone for long, and he sometimes wondered about Chad.   
  
Draining the bacon on paper towels, he cracked eggs into the pan and cooked them over-easy with a sprinkle of black pepper. As he concentrated on the sounds and aromas of a good breakfast, his spirits were lifted in the earlier morning light of the kitchen. He shook off the lingering discomfort over the dream. There was something about the ordinary domesticity of a kitchen put to good use that centered him.    
  
He sat down at the beat up chrome table and ate with gusto. Satisfied the substantial meal would hold him till lunch, he washed up the dishes and left them drying in the dish drainer while he went upstairs to get his room in order.   
  
He leaned the mattress and springs on edge while he put the bed frame together. He placed the springs and mattress back on the frame and made the linens up properly. He put a light bedspread over the cotton blanket even though he knew he’d probably not need either one to keep warm.   
  
He finished unpacking his clothing and folded them into drawers or hung them in the closet. He placed a framed architectural print over the bed, spread a rag rug in shades of blue beside it, and stepped back. He resisted the urge to lie down. There was no time for that.   
  
He broke down the cardboard boxes and carried them through the house and out the back door with the intent to stack them in the garage until he took them for recycling. He was crossing the driveway when he heard a dog whine.   
  
He stopped in his tracks and looked around but didn’t see anything. He was sure he’d heard a dog whine clear as day. Then, he heard it again coming from a thicket near the tree line. He laid the boxes down on the cracked concrete and walked toward the sound. He circled around and saw a black lab. It was big but skinny. The heavy chain dangling from its collar was tangled in the bushes.   
  
“Hey, hey boy,” he said low and soothing. “Or girl. You got yourself in a fix, huh?”   
  
The dog whined again and pulled at the chain as though frightened of him.   
  
“Hey, it’s all right. It’s all right, buddy. I won’t hurt you.” He moved slowly forward. “Huh? See?” He held his hand out toward it, palm side down. “I’m not trying to grab you.” He eased sideways, trying to get to the chain that was wrapped almost methodically around three stems of the bush. He moved to the other side of the shrub and reached his long arms through to disengage the chain. It wasn’t easy, and the branches scraped his wrists and arms up to the elbow. He grunted with exertion, and the dog tugged at the chain, which only made the job harder.   
  
Finally, the chain dropped free of the bush, and the dog trotted off a few feet. Jared sat down cross-legged on the grass and watched the dog sniff around the yard dragging the length of chain behind it. It lifted its leg on a tree confirming Jared’s gender assumption.   
  
“Hey, boy,” Jared said. The dog looked curiously at him and wagged its tail a bit. “Hey, good dog. Come here, buddy.” He held his hand out but the dog didn’t come closer.   


 

  
Jared rose carefully to his feet and walked toward the house. He glanced back over his shoulder on occasion, and the dog followed a few feet behind him. Jared went into the house and got the package of roast beef and box of doughnuts. The dog was sniffing at an old flower pot about six feet away when Jared came out and sat down on the back steps. When he unwrapped the meat, the dog’s head came up and it sniffed the air.   
  
“Smells good, huh?” He peeled a slice of beef off the pile and took a small bite. He held the rest of the slice out in the dog’s direction. “You want it?”   
  
The dog took a couple tentative steps forward, and Jared tossed the slice to it. The dog lunged forward and snatched the meat from the ground. It swallowed the morsel whole and wagged its tail.   
  
“Yeah, good stuff, huh?” Jared held out another piece and the animal stepped toward him before stretching its muzzle close enough to reach the meat. Jared slowly fed the entire pound of meat to the dog while quietly talking to it. In response, it eased closer. When the package of meat was gone, he set a doughnut on the step beside him and as the dog ate it he examined its collar.   
  
There were no tags on it and the chain had been wired to the collar loop. He cussed under his breath as he unbent the wire to get it loose from the collar. The dog nosed at the closed doughnut box and then licked Jared’s hand.   
  
“No, I think you’ve had enough for a little while,” he said. He rose and opened the storm door to step inside. “You want to come in?”   
  
The dog had its front feet up on the step but hesitated to come into the enclosed porch. Jared propped the door open and went inside. As he proceeded into the kitchen, he heard the dog’s claws on the porch floor.   
  
“I guess we need to make a trip to town,” he said. He pulled the local phone book from the drawer beside the refrigerator and opened the yellow pages to veterinarians. There was one located in town and two others within twenty miles. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in the local number.   
  
He turned and leaned back against the counter. A woman answered, “Countryside Vet Clinic, may I help you?”   
  
“Yeah, I had a stray dog show up at my house,” Jared said. “It’s real skinny, obviously stray, and I’d like to bring it in and have it looked over.”   
  
“Sure, let me see what we have open.”   
  
That’s when Jared noticed the heart-shaped box of chocolates on the table. He frowned. It hadn’t been there before he went outside, and it wasn’t Valentine’s Day. Jared pushed away from the counter and approached the table.   
  
“It looks like we have a cancellation at two, if you’d like to bring him in then,” the receptionist said.   
  
“Yeah,” Jared said. “That would be great.” It was a two-pound box covered in deep red velvet.   
  
“Okay, what’s your name?” she asked.   
  
“Jared Padalecki,” he answered and then spelled it out. He got his fingertips under the edge of the lid, lifted and slid it aside. The dark, little confections sat in individual paper cups.   
  
“And does the dog have a name?”   
  
There were dark chocolate truffles, milk chocolate covered cherries, white chocolate-covered truffles … a blue iris stared upward. “Oh God…”

 

  
“Excuse me?” the reception asked.   
  
“I, no, no, he doesn’t have a name yet,” Jared said. His heart hammered in his chest as he slid the lid completely off and a second blue eye was revealed nestled amongst the chocolates. “He’s a black lab mix.”   
  
“Okay, that’s fine, sir,” she said. “We’ll see you at two, and payment is expected at the time of service.”   
  
“Yeah, of course,” Jared said and clicked off.   
  
He slid the box toward him. He couldn’t pull his gaze away as though looking enough would make it make sense. It had to be some sick joke. His first thought was Chad, but it wasn’t Chad’s style.    
  
Suddenly, the dog was there shoulder pressed against his thigh and nose up over the edge of the table. That snapped Jared into motion. He lifted the box from its place. “No, buddy, you can’t have chocolate.”   
  
He carried the box to the counter and gingerly lifted the eyes from the box in their paper wrappers. Sitting there side by side on the counter, they were even more surreal. He picked one up and peeled the paper back on one side. They were undoubtedly real eyeballs. Human eyes.   
  
He took a small sealable bowl from the cabinet, placed the orbs in it, and secured the lid before placing that in a small paper bag, which he stuffed into the tall kitchen trash can.  He put the lid on the chocolate box, the velvet top soft as peach fuzz to the touch, and then checked the time on his phone. He had time to get to town with fifteen minutes to spare.   
  
“So, how’d you like to go for a ride, my friend?” he asked the dog.   
  
  
  
Buddy, as Jared was beginning to think of him, was up on the examining table when the vet came into the exam room.  A lab tech had already taken his temperature, weighed him, and looked at his teeth. She lifted his tail and used to a plastic loop to get a stool sample. The canine’s ears drooped and he looked plaintively at Jared.   
  
“I know, dude,” Jared said and rubbed his ears.   
  
The door opened and an older bearded man came in. He wore a white lab coat over a plaid shirt and jeans. He carried a file in his left hand and extended the right. “Jared…” He squinted through reading glasses at the file.   
  
“Padalecki,” Jared said.   
  
“I’ll take your word for it,” the vet said. He had a firm shake.   
  
“Doctor…”   
  
“Call me Jim. We’re not formal around here,” he said. He reached over and rubbed the dog’s ear. “And who do we have here?”   
  
“He’s a stray,” Jared said. “He showed up in my yard this morning dragging a chain behind him.”   
  
The vet frowned and took the dog’s head between his hands. He lifted its lip on the right side and looked at the inside. “Yep, that’s what I thought.”   
  
“What?” Jared asked.   
  
Beaver turned the dog’s head toward Jared. “See that?” he asked. There was a squiggly little scar on the inside of the dog’s lip. "Got a fish hook in it a couple years ago. This is Zeke Norton’s dog…or was.”   
  
Jared’s stomach dropped. “Is he gonna want him back?”   
  
“Not if he doesn’t know where he went,” Beaver said. He ran a hand over the dog’s ribs. “Never did take much care of Burt here, but he’s worse now than I’ve ever seen him.” Beaver hooked his stethoscope in his ears and listened to the dog’s chest and sides. “Lungs and heart sound good. You thinking of keeping him?”   
  
“Yeah, if I can,” Jared said. “I had a golden retriever growing up, but then…I’ve been in an apartment the past few years. When I got the house with a yard, I’d been planning to get a dog, and this guy showed up. If I could give him a home, I’d like to.”   
  
“Yeah,” Jim said. He had his arms around the dog, palpating its stomach. “Don’t feel any problems in there. You bought the Black place, huh?”   
  
“Yeah,” Jared said, “I guess word gets around.”   
  
“Small town,” the vet said. “Course your move has been eclipsed by other news.”   
  
“Yeah,” Jared said. “I was at the diner yesterday and, well, everywhere folks were talking about it.”   
  
Beaver sat down on the rolling stool and made a quick note on the file. “I’ll tell ya, it’s the damnedest thing.” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. We don’t have much crime here. I mean, there’s drugs. They’re everywhere. Some DUIs, domestic cases, but this murder… Nice kid. Working in the kennel since last summer. Great with the animals and kept the kennel clean.” He shook his head again.   
  
“Yeah, I’d guess murder is pretty rare in a town like this,” Jared said much as he hated a cliché.   
  
“First one in ten years,” Beaver said. He tapped his fingers on the table, and Buddy sniffed at them. Beaver reached up and scratched at the dog’s ear. “Funny thing, last murder. Never was solved. Kid just about Drew’s age, stabbed.”   
  
“Really? That’s weird.”   
  
“Mm, no serious suspects or motive either,” Beaver said. His brow remained furrowed. “Not sure the cops are any better off on this case. Drew wasn’t all that popular, but no one seems to think he had enemies either.” Beaver seemed to shake it off then. “Sorry about that.”   
  
“No, that’s okay,” Jared said. “Kind of an intellectual puzzle.”   
  
“That it is,” Beaver said. “So you thinking of sinking some money into this guy today?”   
  
“Yeah,” Jared said. “Whether I keep him or not, he needs vaccinations, right?”   
  
“Yep, Norton hasn’t had him in for a check-up in three years,” Beaver said.   
  
“How old is he?”   
  
“Six.” Beaver stood. “I think Jessica has a stool check going. We should do a heartworm test and get him up to date on his rabies and other vaccinations, but I’d like him to put on some weight before we vaccinate.”   
  
“Okay, so let’s do the heartworm test today,” Jared said.   
  
Ten minutes later, Jared was standing at the reception counter writing a check for more than a hundred dollars. In addition to the exam and tests, he’d also bought flea and heartworm preventatives, a bag of food, and a leash. As the clerk rang him up, he looked over a bulletin board with employee photos with their pets. Photos framed the bulletin board with one alone in the center surrounded by silk flowers. It was of a boy with jet black hair holding a Siamese cat. Jared leaned closer, and there was no mistaking the kid and cat had matching blue eyes. A chill ran up his spine.   
  
“All right, Mr. Padalecki,” Stacy said as she handed him a receipt and welcome bag with a canine toothpaste and brush, a handful of dog cookies, and a bandana. “Have a good day.”   
  
“Yeah, you too, Stacy,” Jared said. “Come on, Buddy.”   
  
  
  
  
  
Jared hadn’t much more than gotten in the house when the doorbell rang. He went to the front door and peered through a clear portion of the glass. He saw just enough to recognize the brown shirt and hat of a sheriff’s uniform. He pasted his friendliest smile on his face and swung the door open.   
  
“Sheriff,” he said, “what can I do for you?” Jared noted the last name Morgan after Sheriff on the man’s name badge.   
  
“Mr. Padalecki,” the man said. “I’m sure you’ve heard there was a murder in town. I’m just out canvassing residents, see if they saw or heard anything that night.”   
  
“All I know is what I heard in town the next day,” Jared said. Buddy had come up beside Jared and pressed his side against Jared’s leg.   
  
Morgan looked down at the dog. “That old man Norton’s dog?”   
  
Jared shrugged. “Wandered in stray this morning. I just got back from the vet with him.”   
  
“You take him to Jim Beaver?”   
  
“Yeah. Jim said he was practically starved. I got some special food to get him back in shape.”   
  
“Funny thing. Beverly Norton called earlier to say her dad went out coon hunting yesterday night and hadn’t come home,” Morgan said with a frown. “Probably got drunk and shot himself or fell off a bluff.”   
  
“Drinker?”   
  
“Professional,” Morgan said. “Mind if I come in Mr. Padalecki?”   
  
“Sure,” Jared said and swung the door wider. “And call me Jared.”   
  
Morgan took off his hat and stepped into the foyer. “You’ve blown the dust off the place real quick.”   
  
“It’s a great house,” Jared said, “but it’s going to take some work getting it back in shape. I was just putting coffee on. Would you like a cup?”   
  
“Don’t mind if I do,” Morgan said and followed Jared into the kitchen. Buddy rushed ahead when he saw the sheriff following. “He’s a little skittish.”   
  
“Yeah, I think he’s been abused.” Jared rubbed the dog’s head. “But he’s a good dog. Aren’t you? Yes, you are.” He got a dog cookie from the vet bag and tossed it onto the enclosed porch. Buddy ran with a clatter of claws to get it.   
  
Jared took two mugs from the cabinet and set them on the counter by the coffee maker. Without thinking, he pushed the box of chocolates aside.   
  
“Odd time of year for Valentine’s,” Morgan said.   
  
“Yeah, secret admirer back in the city,” Jared said.   
  
Morgan made a scoffing sound. “Women call ‘em stalkers.”   
  
“Have a seat, Sheriff. How do you take your coffee?”   
  
A chair scraped on the linoleum. “Black as coal,” the sheriff said as he set his hat on the table. “I was sorry to hear about your parents.   
  
Jared went very still inside, but didn’t let it show. He took the milk from the refrigerator and poured a little in his mug before filling both mugs with coffee. He set one in front of Morgan.   
  
“Is that why you’re out here? Because my parents were murdered?”   
  
“Not just murdered,” Morgan said. He took a sip of coffee.   
  
“No,” Jared agreed. “The police showed me photos, but I’m sure you know that. You know I was a suspect, and I didn’t kill them.”   
  
“I know you had a solid alibi,” Morgan said. He tapped his finger on the tabletop. “And you had a motive – thousands of motives.”   
  
Jared set the chocolate box on the table and pushed it toward Morgan as he sat down across from him. “Yep. My parents were brutally murdered, Sheriff. The inheritance doesn’t erase that.”   
  
“Of course not,” Morgan said. “Tell me, where were you Monday night?”   
  
“Here,” Jared said. He took a sip of coffee. “I moved in Monday. My friend Chad helped me move.”   
  
“He was here?” Morgan lifted the lid on the chocolates and looked them over.   
  
“Yes, till about eight o’clock. The sun was going down.”   
  
“And after that?” Morgan selected a milk chocolate strawberry truffle and bit into it.   
  
“I was here alone.”   
  
Morgan chewed thoughtfully. “Your secret admirer has good taste…and money. Bought these for my wife once. She got mad about the credit card bill.”   
  
Jared leaned on his elbows. “Sheriff, you don’t really think I had anything to do with this kid’s murder, do you? Or maybe Zeke Norton’s? You think I’d move to town and start murdering people?”   
  
Morgan shook his head. “Nah, that would be stupid, and the detective on your parents’ case assured me you aren’t stupid.”   
  
Jared huffed. “Detective Whitfield…”   
  
“What about him?” Morgan practically lounged in his chair.   
  
“Look, I get it. Experience tells you that the closest family member is the most likely suspect, especially where money is involved. I don’t blame him for thinking it was me.” Morgan watched as Jared took a drink of coffee. “But it wasn’t me, couldn’t have been me. I wasn’t in town that night.”   
  
“That’s what he told me,” Morgan said.   
  
“So why can’t he let it go?” Jared asked.   
  
Morgan sat up straight. “Because sometimes a cop just gets a feeling they can’t shake.”   
  
Jared nodded. “Yeah, I’ve had feelings like that before about people.”   
  
“Did they pan out?”   
  
Jared didn’t answer for a moment. “Not always.”   
  
Morgan nodded. “So how’d you hear about the murder?”   
  
“I was having lunch at the café when Mr. Bishop came in to tell his daughter. Then, everywhere I went folks were talking about it.”   
  
“What’d you have?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“For lunch?”   
  
“Chicken fried steak.”   
  
“Good choice. What did Bishop tell you?”   
  
“That this kid, Drew, was murdered.”   
  
“Did he say how?”   
  
“No.” Jared took a sip of coffee.   
  
“Throat cut. Like your parents.”   
  
“My parents weren’t dismembered,” Jared said. He couldn’t help the anger that tinged his voice.   
  
“No, you’re right. Just a coincidence.”   
  
Jared drank the rest of his coffee and stood. “Sheriff, I did not kill my parents, and I did not kill that boy. I’m not murderer.”   
  
Morgan held his hands up as though in surrender. “All right.” He rose from the chair. “I’ll get out of your hair now. I know you’ve got a lot to do. What’s the plan anyway?” he asked as he moved down the hallway.   
  
“Plan?”   
  
“For this place,” Morgan said.   
  
“A B&B,” Jared said.   
  
“Ah, I thought you were a writer for some reason,” Morgan swung around in the foyer to face Jared again.   
  
Jared refused to show his irritation at Morgan’s games. “Yeah, but that’s not exactly a steady income – maybe someday.”   
  
“Right. Good luck with that,” Morgan said. Jared opened the door, and Morgan stepped onto the porch. “You know, Whitfield said one other thing. He said he didn’t think butter would melt in your mouth.”   
  
“Well, maybe you should question whether Whitfield is such a good judge of character,” Jared said.   
  
“Yeah, maybe.” Morgan turned to walk away.   
  
“And, you know, maybe he’s a little bitter about having an unsolved double homicide on his record,” Jared said to Morgan’s back. “I can’t say I like the man when he failed to catch my parents’ killer.”   
  
Morgan half-turned his head then and gave a jerky nod before continuing to his car. Jared resisted slamming the door and went to a side window to watch the cruiser until it disappeared around the bend in the drive.


	5. Chapter 5

Jensen smiled.   
  
He’d been disappointed when Jared misinterpreted his love letter.   
  
Then, he’d been hurt and angry when Jared threw away the pretty blue jewels in the candy box, but now he realized how clever Jared was dealing with the cop. And that only raised his estimation of the kid.   
  
He wasn’t a kid. Not really. Younger than Jensen himself, but definitely not a kid. Jensen could see that now as he leaned in the doorway of Jared’s bedroom. Pale moonlight fell through the window and across the sleeping form.   
  
Jared lay sprawled across his bed, one knee turned out and bent the other leg stretched long and straight to the corner of the mattress. The blanket was on the floor, and the corner of the sheet was wrapped around one calf. He wore only boxer-briefs that did little to obscure the substantial promise between his legs.   
  
As Jensen observed, the promise grew, and Jared shifted in his arousal. His lips parted and his fingers curled. He would dream of pleasure – a foreshadowing of their future.   
  
Jensen balled his hands into fists to prevent himself from touching what lay there like an offering. He’d known the boy was as beautiful as any pagan god, but now, to learn that Jared was clever and cool-headed instead of a panicky little bird like the others…Jared would see that they were alike. They belonged together.   
  
Jensen would wait and plan…    
  
  
  
  
  
Jared pulled the truck around to the back of the house near the garage. Buddy jumped up from where he’d been sunning himself on the stoop and ran to the truck with his tail wagging.   
  
“Hey, Bud,” Jared said as he got out of the truck. He squatted down and took the dog’s head in his hands. He rubbed the animal’s ears and got a wet tongue swiped up his cheek as a reward. “Yeah, good dog.”   
  
He stood and Buddy ran off a few feet and grabbed a stick. He brought it to Jared. “You want me to throw that?” he asked, but the moment he reached for it, Buddy ran off. He turned back with what looked like a grin. “Oh this is a game of Keep Away, huh? No thanks, I have work to do.”   
  
He strode toward the porch with the dog at his heels. “No, you can’t bring that in the house.” As though understanding exactly what Jared had said, the dog dropped the stick and followed him into the house. Jared poured some kibble into the dog’s dish and continued into the kitchen. He grabbed a can of Coke and started upstairs when his cell phone rang.   
  
“Hey, man,” Jared answered.   
  
“Dude, how’s it hanging?” Chad asked.  
  
“Good,” Jared said automatically.   
  
“Seriously, how’s the house? Any bumps in the night?”   
  
“Just the usual. You know, flickering lights, phantom bloody handprints, disembodied voice saying, ‘Get out!’ That kind of thing.” Jared was suddenly gripped by the image of blood soaked hands leaving tracks across his skin. It was the echo of a dream from the night before. He hadn’t remembered it upon waking, but the horror and pleasure of it had chased him to wakefulness and left him trembling and strangely aroused.   
  
“…shouldn’t joke about that shit,” Chad said.   
  
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jared agreed. He reached the third floor and went down the hallway to a door that opened on stairs to the attic.   
  
“Are you all right?” Chad asked.   
  
“Yeah, fine.” Jared climbed in the dim light filtering through dusty windows.   
  
“You sound weird.” Chad wasn’t joking. He was using his rare serious tone, the one he’d developed after the death of Jared’s parents, during the investigation of their murder.   
  
Jared huffed. “Just didn’t sleep well. It happens.” He could stand to his full height in the center of the long attic space. The roof-line angled down to each side but for a dormer with windows. There were trunks and stacks of boxes, a wicker baby carriage and a Victrola, old iron bedsteads, chairs and lamps. It could take hours to go through it all, but for some reason Jared was drawn to an escritoire with a box sitting on top.   
  
“You still talking to that shrink?” Chad asked.   
  
“Not lately. No. I’m fine, Chad. Seriously.” Jared flipped open the top of the box. It was filled with photographs.   
  
“Okay. All right,” Chad said. “You went through a rough time, and sometimes that shit, it can come back when you’re stressed, you know?”   
  
“I’m not stressed. It’s peaceful here – small town, countryside, hey, I even got a dog. Life is good, my friend.”   
  
“Yeah? Okay. I’m glad it’s working out, buddy. I am. So when are you having that blowout house-warming party?”   
  
“Is that what this call is about?” He picked the box up and took it over by the windows where he sat down on the floor.   
  
“Have you met me?”   
  
“Right, right,” Jared said. He was only half listening. “Tell you what. Give me a few weeks, and we’ll have a house warming party.” He began to flip through the photographs. Most were black and white photos from the first half the twentieth century – men in fedoras and women in feathers and furs. A few were color. Many had the faded color-shift of 1970s photos. The women had strangely pale lipstick and _That Girl_ flips, and the men wore pastel leisure suits. There were few later than that.    
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“Definitely.” Jared stopped on a photo from an Easter egg hunt of a big-eyed little boy with blonde hair. Jared recognized the pool enclosure in the background. The boy was stooped down, reaching for an egg, but looking up at the photographer with a serious expression. Jared turned the photo over. _Jensen, age four_ , was written in loopy cursive on the back.   
  
“Awesome.” Chad sounded reassured, so Jared was satisfied.   
  
“Okay, I gotta get off the phone and get to work,” Jared said. “Later, man.” He thumbed off the phone and looked through the handful of remaining photos – a smiling young man and woman in tennis clothes standing on the front steps with the house looming behind them, the same couple but older and more serious in black mourning dress, another of a teenage boy, and another of a cat on tree stump. The couple in both photos shared a resemblance to one another – brother and sister maybe. Yet, something about them in the second photo suggested husband and wife.   
  
He stopped and went back to the boy. It was just a head shot, with the boy turned to his left looking out of frame. His black sweater blended into the background as did his dark hair but for some streaks in the front. He had freckled cheeks, full lips, and large eyes – pretty like the woman in the other photos. Her son perhaps.   
  
Jared flipped the photo – _Jensen, 17_. The same boy as the Easter photo, as he’d guessed. There was something so serious and vulnerable about this boy. Jared wondered what happened to him. What had it been like for such a pretty boy in this small town? Jared thought of Drew with his blue-eyed cat and what became of him. Jared looked closely at the photo trying to discern eye color, and thought he saw a hint of green. He’d be pushing thirty, Jared figured. The last of the Black family.   
  
With his curiosity piqued , Jared put the photos in the box and placed it on the escritoire. There was far too much in the attic to explore in an afternoon, and he needed to take a look at the lighting in the back hallway. He grabbed his unopened Coke and headed downstairs.   
  
  
  
  
  
Jared trotted up the steps of the Underground Railroad Museum. Sunlight angled low under the portico of the red brick building. Nona’s brows rose when she saw him.   
  
“I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” she said.   
  
Jared pasted a smile on. “I was hoping you could give me some more information about the house.” He’d thought a bit on the way over about how to approach this. He figured appealing to her interests would be the way to start.   
  
She pursed her lips. “Mm-hm.”   
  
“Adam and Peggy, for example,” Jared hurried on. “There’s no mention in the history of them being freed, but you said they were, right?.”   
  
“Oh, yes, they were,” Nona said. She led him into the next room which was lined with glass-fronted book shelves above wide, shallow drawers. A single, bare window looked out on the sunny lawn. She opened a drawer and took out a portfolio. Setting it on a table, she revealed a yellowed document. “This is the manumission paper for Adam.” She set it to one side. “And this is Peggy’s.”   
  
Jared’s gaze scanned the yellowed, handwritten documents. They were nearly illegible to his untrained eye, but they bore the same date. “Were they husband and wife?” he asked.   
  
“They were,” she replied.   
  
“And their children?”   
  
“None that we know of,” she said. “They were the head servants. They ran the house and we believe were instrumental in conducting runaway slaves through the area.”   
  
“With Dr. Black’s knowledge?” Jared asked.   
  
“Oh yes,” Nona said. She pulled a straight-back chair out from the table and sat down, motioning for Jared to do the same. He did. “The original, antebellum Black house was designed with secret passageways that aided in hiding runaways until they could be taken across the river to Ohio. When Morgan’s Raiders came through, they bombed the Methodist College. We don’t know how for sure, but they found out about Black House being a stop on the Underground Railroad. That’s why the first house was burned.”   
  
She shook her head and tapped her fingers on the table as though remembering it herself. “It was a terrible night. Dr. Black, his family, and some of the servants escaped into the woods, but when the family returned to the smoldering shell of their house, they found three black men and two women hanging from the big oak beside the house. You know the one I mean?”   
  
“Yeah, yeah, I think I do,” Jared said. “That’s…that’s horrible.”   
  
“Mm, it was a horrible time,” she said. “The country was being torn apart by the war and Kentucky was, too. The Commonwealth was officially neutral at the beginning of the war, but that didn’t stop the Confederacy from attacking over in Paducah. U.S Grant came down from Illinois to engage the Confederates – both violated the Commonwealth’s neutrality. The governor, Magoffin, ordered both sides to withdraw, but the General Assembly passed a resolution ordering only the Confederates to leave. The U.S. flag was hoisted in Frankfort, and Kentucky was officially on the side of the Union.” She sat back and nodded again.   
  
“But that doesn’t mean the common citizens were in agreement,” he said.   
  
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not at all. This was a strategically important border state, and the people were divided. Many were for the Union, but were pro-slavery. Others didn’t own a single slave, but didn’t want to tell their Southern neighbors what to do. But there were many people of good will like Dr. Black and the Rev. Fee in Berea.”   
  
“I suppose it was easy for some to be philosophical when they aren’t the ones in shackles,” Jared said.   
  
“Isn’t that just the way?”   
  
“Nona, you said the other day that the townsfolk helped Dr. Black rebuild?”   
  
“Oh, they did more than that,” Nona said. “The new house is much grander than the original Federal-style house.”   
  
“But lacking its secrets,” Jared said.   
  
For the first time, the historian looked askance. “Well, there were rumors…”   
  
“Rumors of what?”   
  
“That the house has its secrets,” she said. “If you read the official history, then you know that in addition to his office in town, Dr. Black treated patients there. It was used as an infirmary.”   
  
“Yes,” Jared said.   
  
“Well, he may have been an abolitionist, but it doesn’t follow that it was acceptable to have black folks walking up to the front door for treatment – especially certain types of treatment.” She leaned forward with her elbows on the table and tapped the shiny surface with her index finger. “When I was a girl, I was quiet, and because I was quiet, the old folks didn’t pay me any mind when they talked. I listened. And it was said that there was a tunnel out in the woods that led to the house. Black folks used that tunnel to visit the doctor for treatment – some of ‘em from back in the hollows too. Young women who’d got themselves into trouble…” She tapped the table again and looked Jared in the eye. “They used the tunnel to get out of trouble.”   
  
“And that was still going on when you were a kid?” Jared asked.   
  
“Oh yes!” Nona sat back and squared her shoulders. “They were talking about a cousin of mine.”   
  
Jared let that sink in a moment. “So, there’s a tunnel leading into my house somewhere.”   
  
“Unless someone bricked it up in the past ten or twenty years,” she said.   
  
Jared felt a chill on the back of his neck. “Okay, that’s officially creepy,” he said. “The past couple of owners did do renovations. Still, you would think a tunnel would lead to the basement, right? I didn’t see any kind of work in the basement that looked recent.”   
  
“I never used the tunnel myself, so I couldn’t say where it led into the house,” Nona said.   
  
Jared started to rise and hesitated. Nona tipped her head quizzically.   
  
“This may sound crazy,” he said, “but have you ever heard that the house was haunted?”   
  
A small smile pulled at Nona’s broad mouth before she threw back her head and laughed so hard Jared could see the gold caps on her back molars. Jared felt heat rise in his cheeks.   
  
Nona wiped at her eyes. “Oh honey, I’m not laughing at you,” she said. “There have been ghost stories about that house since Moses was a pup. When I was a girl, they said that the ghost of old Adam haunted the grounds, and he’d snatch up children who wandered onto the place and put them to work in his workshop polishing boots, endless rows of boots, till their fingers bled.” She rolled her eyes. “The tales old folks told to scare the young ‘uns. Mm!”   
  
Jared couldn’t help smiling. “Sounds pretty scary.”   
  
“Scared me, but my brother and his friends still liked to go up and poke around. They talked about a woman in white who’d been seen up in the tower and a little girl around the old well. Then, since the murders there’ve been stories about the bloody ghosts.”   
  
Jared could tell she was watching him for a reaction, and he tried to control his surprised. “Murders?”   
  
She gave him a sly little smile. “Didn’t tell you, did they? Been trying to sell the place for years, and no one local would touch it.”   
  
“Someone was murdered in the house?” He leaned forward. “When? Who?!”    
  
“The last  Dr. Black,” she said. “Edward Louis Black and his sister, Elise. Never did catch who did it.”   
  
Jared thought of the couple in the photos he’d found. “Did one of them have a son?”   
  
Nona’s brow furrowed. “No, not unless Edward sewed wild oats somewhere. Neither of them married, and they were the last of the Blacks. Why?”   
  
“I found some old photos. A few of a boy. I just assumed he was from the family.”   
  
“I’d like to see those.”   
  
“Yeah, sure,” Jared said. “It seems odd that they’d let the family just die out that way. They were such a prominent family.”   
  
“One after another, the sons in the family went off to medical school out east and came home with a wife. They never intermarried or became a part of the community,” she said. “The town changed; became less progressive. The Blacks didn’t. Most of my people moved away or were forced out by the Klan. The doctors went right on treating us even if it was on the sly. People knew. Then Edward came back without a wife. Still, he took over his father’s practice and continued treating folks until it was discovered he’d never finished medical school.”   
  
“He was practicing medicine without a license?” Jared asked. “That must have gone over well.”   
  
“He wasn’t prosecuted,” Nona said, “but it closed his practice in town.”   
  
“But not at the house?”   
  
“No, there were still poor people and desperate girls,” she replied. “He helped a lot of people, but he and Elise rarely left the house in, oh, thirty years. They had nearly everything delivered, even groceries.”   
  
“So, it’s possible that there was a boy up there that no one knew about,” Jared said.   
  
“I suppose it’s possible,” she said. “An orphan of some poor woman, maybe. A lot of women died in childbirth.”   
  
“Yeah, maybe,” Jared said. “But then, what happened to him, you know?”   
  
“I can’t answer that.”   
  
“You said there is a ghost of a boy.”   
  
Nona put her palm on the table and pushed herself to her feet. “Have you seen ghosts at Black House?”   
  
“I, no, I haven’t,” Jared said. He stood as well and followed her back to the vestibule. His disbelief about the murders was turning into a simmering anger.   
  
“That’s all I know about Black House,” she said, “but any time you’d like to hear about the Underground Railroad, let me know.”   
  
“I do. I will,” Jared said with a smile. “Thank you so much for the information.”   
  
A breeze lifted Jared’s hair from his neck as he exited the museum. The sun had risen in the sky and the temperature had climbed a good ten degrees. There was a heavy feeling to the air as though it might storm later. Jared spotted clouds moving in from the north.   
  
The smile was gone. He started toward his truck and then made an abrupt tack toward Dunajski Realty. Lola’s office was in a storefront at the end of the block, but the door was locked and a sign reading “Be back soon” hung in the window.   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
_Jensen was in the study reading late into the night when he heard the woman’s cries. He closed his book and went to the passageway. He hovered over the stairs and listened to the murmur of Edward’s voice as the woman’s cries reduced to whimpers and then silence._  
  
_“Primum non nocere.” He wondered if the woman would agree._  
  
  
  
_When she began to cry out the next night, the doctor was upstairs in bed. Jensen waited a moment, listened, before creeping down the stairs. She lay in a single bed pushed against the far wall. She was curled on her side in pain. Her face was flushed red and her hair stuck damply to her brow._  
  
_Jensen knelt beside her and took her hand. She opened her eyes and they widened at the sight of him._  
  
_“Are you an angel?” she asked. She lifted her hand toward his face. “So beautiful, divine … Are you here to…take me? Please, take me…”_  
  
_Jensen shook his head and squeezed her hand, but found himself unable to say ‘no.’ He rose and went to the shelves above the counter. He took down the bottle morphine and got a sterile syringe and needle from the drawer. He knelt back down beside the woman’s bed._  
  
_“Sarah, I’m going to give you a shot, okay?” Jensen said. “It’ll, it will help your pain. Make you sleep.”_  
  
_“No!” she said. “Please, look.” She threw the sheet off, uncurled and pulled her gown up to reveal her stomach. While the incision didn’t look too bad, her belly was bloated._  
  
_“I’ll get the doctor,” Jensen said. He started to rise, but she grasped his wrist._  
  
_“No! No, please, please. Let me go, angel. Take me.”_  
  
_Jensen sank to his knees and plunged the needle into the morphine bottle. His hands didn’t shake as he pulled the plunger back. This was right._  
  
_“Primum non nocere.”_  
  
_Be decisive._  
  
_He took Sarah’s arm and rubbed the skin at the crook of her elbow. Her veins were clear, and he gently pushed the tip of the needle through the skin. She continued weeping as he pushed the plunger down. He withdrew the needle from her arm and a bead of blood welled up from the puncture wound. Jensen took a corner of the sheet and pressed it to the spot with his thumb._  
  
_“There,” he said, “you’re going to be fine now.”_  
  
_Sarah’s muscles, which had been rigid with tension from the pain, began to relax. Her eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment. Jensen brushed her hair back from her face._  
  
_“Thank you.” She lifted her hand and looked over Jensen’s shoulder. “Pretty wings.”_  
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
“Damn it!” he swore under his breath. He turned and his gaze swept the square, which was dominated by the stately pillared-façade of the courthouse. The sheriff’s office sat on the back corner of the square, and much as Jared had no great desire to talk to Morgan again, he trotted across the street. The sheriff’s office was an ugly, utilitarian box circa 1970. He pushed the glass door open and was hit by a wall of cool air.   
  
Fortunately for Jared, security at the sheriff’s office hadn’t been updated since the ‘70s either. An older woman with a sour expression and frosted hair sat at a big metal desk behind a counter. He could see Morgan at his desk through a doorway at the back of the room.   
  
“Hi,” Jared addressed the woman but pitched his voice to reach Morgan as well. He saw the sheriff glance up. “I’m Jared Padalecki. Is Sheriff Morgan free for a moment?”   
  
“The sheriff is working on reports and has a meeting in ten minutes,” she said. “If you’d like to make an appointment…”   
  
“I won’t keep him a minute,” Jared said while giving her a look that worked on everyone from school teachers to lovers.   
  
Her face went from sour to flat out ugly. “I don’t think you understand how important the sheriff’s time is.”   
  
“Let him back, Earline,” Morgan said without inflection.   
  
Earline’s brows nearly touched and she jerked her head in the direction of the door behind her. “Go on back,” she snapped.   
  
Jared gave her his most brilliant smile. “Thank you so much for all your help.” He pushed open the small gate in the counter and walked passed Earline as though skirting a badger cage at the zoo. He grasped the door handle as he entered Morgan’s office. “May I?”   
  
Morgan gave him a wave of assent, and Jared swung the door shut. Now that he was in Morgan’s office, he was almost at a loss for words.   
  
“What’s eating you?” Morgan asked. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet on his desk.   
  
Jared raked his fingers through his hair. “Is there not a law in this state that requires disclosure of murders and suicides at houses that are for sale?”   
  
“You heard about the murders, did ya?” Morgan tapped a pen against the arm of the chair.   
  
“You didn’t answer my question.”   
  
“You gonna sue Lola?” Morgan asked. “You want to unload the house?”   
  
Jared huffed. “No, but I should have been told.”   
  
“Sit down,” Morgan said. He waited for Jared to take a seat across from his desk. “Look, I can understand your anger.”   
  
“Can you? Really?” Jared asked. “You know what happened to my parents. Do you have any idea what it’s like getting blindsided by this? I left Texas to put distance between myself and what happened. I spent a year getting through the investigation and probate. I moved here to make a new start only to find out that my house is, is a crime scene. I mean, hell, you could have told me. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t use that as ammunition in that little interrogation at my house.”   
  
“I didn’t think of it,” Morgan said with a smirk.   
  
Jared’s hand clenched on his thigh. “Tell me.”   
  
“Tell you what?”   
  
“Tell me about the murder. Where? How?”   
  
“In the kitchen,” Morgan said.   
  
“How?”   
  
“Stabbing, bludgeoning…”   
  
“Both? Which?”   
  
“The bodies were never found,” Morgan said with a downward glance.   
  
“What?!” Morgan didn’t respond, and Jared continued, “How do you know they’re dead?”   
  
“Because the human body contains about five and half quarts of blood, and most of theirs was on the floor and walls,” Morgan said. “Along with some viscera and fecal matter from Elise. She appeared to have been gutted. There was enough of Dr. Black’s blood on the floor to float a canoe.”   
  
“But who? Why? I mean, were there suspects?”   
  
“Like?”   
  
“I don’t know. I’m not from around here.”   
  
“We exhausted all leads.”   
  
“What about relatives?”   
  
Morgan squinted at Jared. “They didn’t have any relatives.”   
  
“Not here, but maybe elsewhere?”   
  
“The estate went to an elderly female cousin, and no, she didn’t hire a killer. We talked about all kinds of crazy possibilities. We watch crime dramas on TV too, you know.”   
  
“Okay, but … is there a possibility that there was someone living up there with them?”   
  
Morgan’s feet hit the floor. “Why would you say that?”   
  
“I, I found some photos of a boy up at the house. It would have been about the same time frame,” Jared said. “I assumed he was the son of Dr. Black.”   
  
“Black didn’t have any kids. Never married. His sister either,” Morgan said, but Jared could almost hear the gears turning in his head. “What did this kid look like?”   
  
“Dark blond hair, freckles, green eyes, I think.”   
  
“Elise had green eyes. Ran in the family.” Morgan leaned back in his chair. “Huh.”   
  
“I found the photos in the attic, but they were right out in the open. Wasn’t the attic searched?”   
  
“We searched every inch of that house. I was in the attic, and those photos weren’t there. I’d like to see them.”   
  
“Yeah, of course,” Jared said. “I’ll bring them into town tomorrow.”   
  
“Here’s what we did find.”   
  
Morgan pushed away from the desk and turned his chair toward an old metal file cabinet. He yanked the bottom drawer open and pulled out a file, which he tossed on his desk. Jared watched him rifle through it. Extracting a handful of eight-by-ten photos, Morgan handed them to Jared.   
  
It took Jared only a moment to realize that he was seeing a sharply rendered image of fur and bones – the desiccated body of a rat.   
  
“Charming, huh?” Morgan asked.   
  
“Yeah,” Jared said without really noticing. He was looking at the second photo. This one was in color, but very muted – green lichen on the gray stone of a mausoleum with the name Black chiseled on the lintel. The shadows of tree branches played across the stone, and the verdigris gate in the doorway stood ajar. A coffin tipped at precarious angle was visible in the twilight of the interior.   
  
“These are good,” Jared said.   
  
“Really?” Morgan said.   
  
“I mean technically,” Jared said as he moved to the next. He sucked in his breath. “Jesus.” It showed a Valentine heart, not so different from the one he’d received. The inside was pooled with blood, which artfully trailed onto the table. Centered in the box was a heart.   
  
“Who do you think took these?” Jared asked.   
  
“At the time, we assumed Edward or Elise. Who else?”   
  
The rest were less dramatic, but continued the theme – the sun-bleached skeleton of a deer with meadow flowers growing through it, vultures picking at roadkill on a blacktop road, wilted flowers on a fresh grave. Jared closed the file and laid it on Morgan’s desk.”   
  
“Now, I have to wonder,” Morgan said.   
  
“About what?”   
  
“If I made a stupid mistake,” he said. “Not long before Edward and Elise were murdered, there was another murder, a high school kid – Jackie Teagarden. He was found stabbed in and alley near his house. His heart was cut out.”   
  
“Did you think there was a connection?”   
  
“We considered it obviously, didn’t find one. An old man had been out coon hunting that night. He told me that he’d seen someone – the ghost of the boy from the Black place. I figured he’d had too much moonshine and didn’t know what he’d seen – someone maybe, but not a ghost. He couldn’t give me any useful information about the ghost’s actions so...” Morgan shook his head. “Now, I have to wonder – especially with the murder of Drew Massey and this new disappearance. Have you seen anything unusual up at the house?”   
  
“No,” Jared said. “Nothing stranger than a stray dog showing up.”   
  
“Well, let me know if you do,” Morgan said. “I have to get going. I do have a meeting with the county judge.”   
  
“Sure,” Jared said as he stood. “But, Sheriff, why are you telling me all this? Am I no longer a suspect?”   
  
“What makes you think you ever were?”   
  
Jared’s mouth dropped open. “That day out at the house…”   
  
“I was yanking your chain.” Morgan shrugged. “I had a murder on my hands that looked far too much like three unsolved murders from ten years ago. I can’t say I was happy to have an outsider with murder accusations against him in my county.” He tapped a pen on his desk. “Might not have been my finest hour.”   
  
“Is that an apology?” Jared asked.   
  
“Close as you’re likely to get. Now, if you don’t mind.” Morgan rose and rounded the desk to follow Jared out. “Don’t forget those photos.”   
  
“Yeah, absolutely,” Jared said. He passed a portly balding man whom he assumed was the judge, and it wasn’t until he got to the hallway that the implication of conversation hit him.   
  
Jared put out a hand and leaned on the wall. “Holy shit.” _Why did I lie?_


	6. Chapter 6

Jared had spent the morning taking dust covers off furniture, dusting and vacuuming in rooms on the second floor. It wasn’t hard work, and it was a bit of an adventure discovering antique wash basins, four poster beds, and rocking chairs. He unrolled rugs and shined mirrors. He found a writing desk in a bedroom and moved it down the hallway to the turret where the windows looked out over the valley. The shiny curve of the river could be seen over the trees.   
  
He went downstairs and got his laptop, which he set up on the desk. He carried the leather office chair up from the study and sat down. He grinned. This might not work. He could very easily end up staring at the view for hours, but he hoped it would be inspiration. And once he started getting guests on the second floor, he’d move his writing space to the third-floor turret if it worked for him.   
  
“Nice,” he pronounced   
  
After lunch, he figured he’d put off tackling the problem of the hall lights on the second floor long enough. All he needed was a Phillips screwdriver to get the plate cover off the light switch. He went to get one from his tool kit in the pantry. The pantry was a deep narrow space with shelves along one side. Dry goods were stacked on the shelves – canned vegetables and fruit, boxes of cereal, extra rolls of paper towels, and boxes of tissues. There was a shelf high on the end wall with a small cooler and his tool kit on it. When he reached to get the tools, his elbow bumped a roll of paper towels on the side shelf and knocked it to the floor. He squatted to pick it up and noticed something odd – the baseboard wasn’t sealed to the wall with paint along the end wall as it was on the sides. The seam between the wall and the baseboard was clearly separate. On closer inspection, the corners were tight but not sealed with paint as one would expect. He took his fist and rapped on the wall. It gave out a hollow sound. He wrapped on the side wall. It not only sounded but felt more solid.   
  
He stood and stared at the wall. “Huh,” he said. Along the wall on his right were a series of nails on which hung a mop, a broom and a dustpan. At the far end, right up against the wall was another nail. He reached out and wiggled it. There was a click and the wall moved inward about a quarter inch at the right corner. Jared pushed on it, and it swung open. He peered into the murky space beyond and wondered what other secrets the house held.   
  
He stepped inside the narrow passageway. On each side of him was the stud work and lathe of the inside structure. Old knob and tube electrical wiring ran through an occasional section. In others, there was new wiring, pulled through with the electricians no wiser that they could have worked from within. A few feet along the passage, he found a narrow flight of stairs running up and one going down. He realized the one going up must let out somewhere near his bedroom on the second floor.   
  
He thought of the light coming on his room, the shadow during his shower, and the bloody sink. None of it was his imagination. This was proof…or was it? He eyed the steps leading downward. This was the back half of the house. There should be a crawlspace beneath here, but steps suggested a deeper space. He cautiously put a foot on the first step and then another and another.   
  
The rock foundation had been sealed and painted bright white here, and bare incandescent bulbs hung from the low ceiling every six feet or so. The concrete floor had been painted industrial gray and rusty red stained the rim of the floor drain. Two stainless steel medical tables stood in the center of the room with an exam lights over them and a steel counter with a deep sink ran the length of one wall. Beakers and pans were lined up on a shelf above it. An old gas range seemed out of place, and Jared crossed the room to get a better look at the clutter. On the counter beside the range, lay a dog-eared notebook, a wooden spatula, a cooking thermometer, tongs, and a set of plastic forms in the shape of hearts. The kettle on the stove had a skim of purple waxy material in the bottom of it.   
  
The notebook was open to instructions on how to make soap. He flipped back a page—how to render fat to make soap. His heart slammed against his ribs. He thought of the lavender heart soaps and the creamy feel of the lather on his hands.   
  
“Oh my God,” he murmured. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as though someone or something were behind him. He swung around. There was nothing there but the glaring white room. His fingers clutched the edge of the counter as his heart calmed. He looked back over the shelves filled with clear and blue and brown apothecary bottles – some with printed labels, other’s hand lettered. All were neatly lined up and dusted – nitroglycerin, mercurous chloride, oil of clove, heroin.   
  
He picked up a bottle labeled _chocolate coated_ and read, “One hundred tablets iron arsenous acid and strychnine, Eli Lilly and Company. Jesus.” He set the bottle back in its place. _It was a wonder anyone survived a visit to the doctor a century ago_.   
  
An old pressure cooker was pushed to the back burner on the range, and Jared lifted the lid and peered inside. In the bottom lay hemostats, scalpels and other surgical instruments waiting to be sterilized.   
  
Adrenaline was surging through his veins, urging him to flee. He still felt eyes watching him, but he was sure it was his body’s fear response making him paranoid. He faced the room again and took in the gleaming surfaces and neatly arranged instruments. This was no long-forgotten medical lab or private museum. This was no ghostly haunt.   
  
Curiosity forgotten, Jared rushed up the stairs, down the short passageway and into the kitchen. He paced the linoleum for a moment before getting his tool kit and disabling the latch on the secret door in the pantry. He drove a few nails through the woodwork to help hold it shut. It would have to do for now.   
  
He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and went out the backdoor. He sat down on the sun-warmed concrete stoop and took a long drink. Buddy sat down next to him, and Jared threw an arm around the dog’s shoulders and hugged him close. He pressed his cheek to the top of the animal’s head, and the dog didn’t resist or pull away. Some of the tension drained from Jared.   
  
“What am I gonna do, Bud?” He murmured. “I sank all my money into this place, and either I’m losing it or there’s a serial killer in my house.”   
  
Jensen couldn’t hear Jared’s words, but he saw his distress as he watched from inside the kitchen. The boy and dog were framed by shadows of the mud room in a square of light through the screen door. Jared wasn’t supposed to have found the room yet. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, but at least, his boy loved the dog. Jensen had gotten that much right, and no one would really miss that old bastard Norton anyway. Now, he needed to find a way to reassure him and make him see they belonged together.   
  
Jensen rolled the possibilities over in his mind. Bones and skin and sinew. Hearts and flowers. Red for love. White for fidelity. The four elements, breath and blood, passion and flesh. The house was a heart-shaped box, a well of hope and desire, an aerie of dreams, and Jensen would bed it with feathers and phlox. He slipped into the shadows as Jared rose and reached for the door handle.   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
Jared sat at the kitchen table, the cord for the wall phone stretched across the room, and waited to be put through to Dr. Huffman. Buddy lay at his feet, and he rubbed the dog’s velvety ear.   
  
“Jared, I’m so pleased to hear from you.” Dr. Huffman’s voice always managed to convey concern as well as a hint of flirtation. Jared could almost see her sitting there in her leather chair with a swath of red hair hanging over one shoulder. “How are you?”   
  
“I’m good,” he said automatically.   
  
“Are you?” she asked.   
  
He blew out a breath. “I’m a little stressed out to be honest.”   
  
“How so?” she asked.   
  
“Well, I, um, I bought a house out in the country. I’m turning it into a bed and breakfast like we talked about.” He reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. “There’s just a lot going on.”   
  
“Any kind of life change is stressful,” she said. “And that’s a lot to take on with everything you’ve been through in the past year.”   
  
“Yeah, yeah, I realize that,” he said. “I do. This place just seemed so peaceful, you know? And it is. It should be…”   
  
“But?”   
  
“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “But this house … it’s spooky? No, it’s more than that. There’s something strange ... I’m not saying it’s haunted. It’s not haunted, but weird things keep happening.”   
  
“Like what?”   
  
“You’ll think I’m crazy, and I’m not crazy, not hallucinations crazy, right?”   
  
“You aren’t crazy, Jared. You’re traumatized. Now, tell me about the strange things that have happened.”   
  
He absent-mindedly spun the Lazy Susan on the table, watching the butter dish and salt and pepper shakers flash by. “Okay, so one night, I went up to take a shower and the words “I adore you _”_ were written on the bathroom sink in … it looked like blood.”   
  
“What did you do?”   
  
“I freaked out,” he said. “I took my meds and, and slept in the living room.” He suddenly stopped the spinning. There was a photograph sticking out from beneath the edge of the lazy susan. “But when I went up in the morning, it was gone.” He pulled the photo out with the tip of his finger. It was the photograph of Jensen as a teen. He’d left it in the attic.   
  
“Is that it?” Dr. Huffman asked.   
  
“I, no, there’s been other things,” he said. “Um, things appearing that weren’t there before.”   
  
“Could someone be messing with you? Locals perhaps who don’t want a newcomer in the house?”   
  
“I, I guess that’s possible.”   
  
“Listen, I’m going to call you in a prescription at the local pharmacy there? What’s the name of it?”   
  
“Blair’s,” Jared said. He stared at the photo in his hand. “I’ll get you the number. Hold on.” He went got up and grabbed the phone book from a drawer. “It’s 606-555-0362.”   
  
“All right then,” she said. “I’m going to call in something to help with the anxiety, and I’m going to transfer you back to Linda. I want to see you next week, okay?”   
  
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Jared said. “Thank you.”   
  
  
  
  
  
A couple hours later, Jared grabbed his keys and jogged out to the truck with Buddy at his heals.   
  
“You want to go too, Bud?” It was a warm day, but Jared figured he could leave the truck running with the air conditioning on while he ran into the pharmacy. “Yeah, why not?” He opened the passenger-side door glad that he’d had the dog’s nails trimmed as it jumped onto the leather seat. He’d have to get a blanket to the cover the seats.   
  
Jared went around to the driver’s side and got in. Buddy gave him a swipe up the cheek with his tongue. “Aw, dude, no.” Jared wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. “Just sit there and behave.” Buddy wiggled, tongue lolling from his mouth.   
  
Jared put the key in the ignition and turned it, and got nothing but a clicking sound. “What the fuck?” He tried again, and again click, click. He banged the heels of his hands on the steering wheel. “Fuck!”   
  
He checked the dash instruments and saw the headlight knob was pulled out. “No way.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d driven after dark. He shook his head and pushed the knob in. The battery was dead. “Fuck me.” He sighed and pulled the hood release under the dash.   
  
He swung the door open. “Come on, Bud. We aren’t going anywhere today.” The dog leapt out after him and followed him to the garage where Jared had stowed a small air-compressor, a few tools, and fortunately, a battery charger. He strung an orange drop cord from the garage to the truck and hooked the charger up to the battery. He lowered the hood till there was just enough room for the cord to snake out.   
  
Clouds were building to the west over the hills and not a leaf stirred on the trees. The air was oppressive, still and silent. There wasn’t a chirp or rustle of leaves. Buddy was standing at the door as though seeking shelter.   
  
Jared opened the door and followed the dog inside. He crossed the kitchen and dialed Blair’s number into the gold wall phone. “Hi, this is Jared Padalecki. I was supposed to have a prescription called in? Yeah, listen, my truck battery is dead. Do y’all deliver? Great. Thanks a lot.”   
  
  
  
  
  
The sound of thunder had been creeping closer for some time when Jensen heard the doorbell sound. He watched Jared go to the door and open it. A young man stood on the porch. In his hand was a small white paper bag. Behind him, the branches of trees were beginning to whip back and forth in the wind that ruffled the young man’s blond hair.   
  
“Hi,” Jared said. “How much do I owe you?” He gave the kid that sunshine grin, and the boy nearly melted right there on the porch. Jensen’s jaw clenched.   
  
“Oh, um, $12.50” the kid said. He leaned a little toward Jared and gave him a smile.   
  
Jared pulled a roll of bills from the front pocket of his jeans and began counting out the money. Jensen imagined the soft, warmth of those bills that had been nestled against Jared’s thigh. “Listen, um…”   
  
“Billy.” The kid looked up through lowered lashes.   
  
“Billy.” Jared glanced up with a smile. “I can’t thank you enough. The battery died on my truck, you know? And I really needed this stuff.” He handed Billy the money.   
  
“Afraid of thunder?” Billy asked.   
  
Jensen almost laughed. Afraid of thunder. Not his boy, not Jared.   
  
“What?” Jared asked.   
  
Billy handed him the bag.   
  
“Oh.” Jared chuckled. “No, not exactly. Just stuff.”   
  
“No, I get it,” Billy said. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have made a joke. I’ve had anxiety attacks before. Not cool.”   
  
“No, they aren’t,” Jared said. A crack of thunder split the air.   
  
“This is a great house,” Billy said. “I’m glad someone bought it. I hated to see it just sit here and fall apart. Happens all over the area.”   
  
“Yeah, that’s a shame,” Jared said. The bag was in his hand. The transaction was over, but he didn’t step back to close the door. Something dark and vicious uncoiled in Jensen. _The kid needed to go. Now._   
  
“I’ll bet it’s as amazing inside as it is outside, huh?” The kid eased forward and looked past Jared into the darkened hallway.   
  
“Yeah,” Jared said. “Listen, I’d show you around but …”   
  
Another crack of thunder struck. This one so violent the windows shook.   
  
“You better get back to town before this storm hits,” Jared said.   
  
“Yeah, I guess so,” Billy grinned. He took off for his car as the first raindrops began to fall.   
  
Jared swung to door shut, throwing the entryway into deep gloom. Jensen stepped back into the shadows of the bathroom. Jared walked back toward the kitchen and passed within inches of Jensen who fought down the urge to reach out and take what was his.   
  
Jared tore the bag open as he walked across the kitchen. The brown prescription bottle dropped onto the counter. He picked it up and read the label – lorazepam. He was unfamiliar with it, but didn’t bother reading the information sheet. He pried the childproof cap off the bottle, shook a white tablet out on his palm, and popped it into his mouth. He turned on the tap and drank a gulp of water from his palm. He felt as though a current was running through him, and his chest was tight. He splashed water on his face and leaned his elbows on the edge of the sink, willing the pill to work quickly.   
  
Thunder rolled, and lightning flashed.   
  
He turned and leaned back against the counter. Thunder cracked again. Buddy scurried in from the enclosed porch and slunk under the table.   
  
“I know, Bud. It’s okay. You can stay there.” Jared walked over and shut the door to the porch. The kitchen had grown increasingly dark as the storm moved in, but there was enough light left to navigate the room. Jared grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and sat down at the table. Moments later, he felt the dog’s warm muzzle on his thigh. He reached under the table and rubbed the animal’s ears.   
  
“It’s okay, Bud,” he said. “This is our house. We aren’t going anywhere.”   
  
He leaned on his elbows and sipped his beer. His head got heavier, and he propped it up with his fist as his eyes began to droop.   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
In the light of the full moon, Jensen had made his way down the path through the hollow with practiced ease. There had been a time when he’d used it almost nightly. It was much closer than taking the road to town. It had once been common knowledge among the poor and desperate. Few knew of it now, but he still used it to make forays into town under cover of night. This had been an especially important trip. Jared would come to him soon.   
  
As a kid, he’d ventured closer and closer to town, making friends with dogs and observing people from the shadows. One night restless night, he’d seen a boy with hair the color of dark chocolate and eyes like moonlight. The boy had been sitting on the retaining wall behind Blair’s Pharmacy with a bottle of cheap vodka and another of cough syrup.   
  
_He didn’t know what made him so bold as to speak to the boy, but he had sidled up and said, “Hey.” The kid had looked up, the shock of crimson hair falling away from his eyes, and Jensen had fallen in. The boy’s cheeks were as smooth and without blemish as a marble statue. His Cupid’s bow lips couldn’t completely conceal a slight gap in his front teeth that proved him human. Still, Jensen thought him as lovely as a god._  
  
_He had asked who Jensen was and seemed satisfied with his simple answer of Jensen. He’d offered Jensen vodka, which Jensen thought tasted like something the doctor would use to clean a wound. He drank it just to be close to this demigod who called himself Jackie._  
  
_They continued to meet at the drug store, the old distillery or the boat ramps on the edge of town as the cool nights of spring became the short, sultry nights of summer. Chaste kisses led to sweat slick skin, grasping hands, and devouring mouths. Jensen wanted more. Always more._  
  
_Then, Jackie didn’t come. Night after night, Jensen took the path to town and looked and waited. After a week that seemed like an eternity, Jensen saw Jackie leaving the small theater with a group of other high school kids. He followed them until Jackie split off from the others at the street where he lived. Jensen caught up and stopped him._  
  
_“Leave me alone, Jensen,” he hissed._  
  
_“I don’t understand,” Jensen said. “Why?”_  
  
_“Sh, people will hear you!”_  
  
_Jensen grabbed the other boy’s arm and pulled him down an alley behind an abandoned house._  
  
_“Why are you doing this?” Jensen demanded._  
  
_“I don’t even know who you are,” Jackie said. “Or where you come from. You’re some weird hilljack or something, and I don’t want to do those things with you anymore.”_  
  
_Jensen couldn’t speak for a moment. Something was crushing the air from his chest. “Why?”_  
  
_“Because it’s wrong.” Jackie tried to jerk his arm from Jensen’s grasp. “I know what you want, and I won’t do it.”_  
  
_“But, but I love you,” Jensen said. “I gave you…”_  
  
_“Stones and feathers and animal skulls?” Jackie scoffed. “You’re fucked up, Jensen.”_  
  
_“No.” Jensen wrapped his fingers around the other boy’s pretty throat and squeezed until he quit fighting. Then, he reached in his pocket and pulled out his buck knife._  
  
More than a decade had passed, but Jensen was going to look for a boy again. He’d give Jared more than stones and feathers and animal skulls. Jared would see how treasured he was.   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
  
  
Jared awoke with his head on the kitchen table and crick in his neck. He sat up and rubbed the tight muscles at the base of his skull. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep but it was nearly dark and the storm had blown over. His hand bumped something on the table. He couldn’t make out anything except a dark square.   
  
He pushed himself to his feet and heard the clatter of Buddy’s claws as he crawled from beneath the table. Jared crossed the room and flipped a switch beside the sink. The round fluorescent above it flickered to life, and Jared blinked against the wan light. Buddy was standing at the door.   
  
“You want outside, dude?” Jared opened the door and let the dog out. Turning back, he saw a small wooden box on the table. He didn’t remember having seen it in the house, and it certainly wasn’t his. He picked it up and carried it closer to the light. There was nothing remarkable about the box. It was about four inches across and two inches high with a simple carved pattern along the edge and a violet carved in the lid. He pried the hinged lid open, and there was a bracelet lying on a bed of cotton batting.  

 

  
  
  
Jared set the box down and took the bracelet from it. It was made of braided black fiber with silver catches at each end.   
  
“Hair,” Jared whispered. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Drew had had black hair. “Jesus.”   
  
He dropped the bracelet back into the box, and his gaze went to the pantry where the door stood ajar. He took a deep breath and let it out before edging toward the pantry. He opened the door quickly and stepped inside where he could reach the pull chain on the overhead light. The back wall looked solid. He ran his hands along it to be sure, but the nails he’d put in were still in place.   
  
He backed out of the pantry feeling eyes on him, but there was no one in the room. He anger rose in him. He rushed down the hallway into the entryway and looked up the stairwell.   
  
“I know you’re here!” he shouted. “I’m not crazy! This is real!” He took a breath, chest heaving, but was answered with silence. “Why don’t you show yourself?! I know you’re here!”  

 

  
That’s when he glanced over at the stairwell and saw pale blots in the darkness. He turned on the entryway light and the murky amber glow lit the curved staircase ornamented with pale blossoms. They started on the third step up and continued every three or four steps. Jared picked one up. Queen Anne’s Lace still damp from the storm, and something else, a pale pebble. No, a tooth. A molar. The trail of flowers and teeth led upward to the second-floor landing and on up to the third floor. The evening was growing darker, too dark to see the trail. Jared flipped the hall lights on, and the old forty-watt bulbs gave off an eerie glow, but it was enough to see the trail by. He followed it down the main hall and then turned down the back hallway to the room right above his – the one that had been locked when he’d done the walk-through with Lola. He’d forgotten about it with all the work and odd occurrences. The door now stood ajar with light falling from the opening.   
  
Jared slowly pushed the door open. It was a bedroom. Nothing more. It was papered in feather-print wallpaper of blues and grays. An old iron bedstead stood just as his did between the windows. The mattress was covered in a blue chenille spread. An insect collection was framed on the wall above it. Books stood between horsehead bookends on the waterfall-style bureau – Faulkner, Shirley Jackson, Lovecraft, Poe, Bradbury, LeGuin, Derleth. Jared took down the Bradbury, _Something Wicked This Way Comes_. He’d loved the novel of an evil circus himself. Turning to the flyleaf, he found _Jensen_ written in cursive with a large spikey ‘J’ followed by flattened almost illegible letters.   
  
“By the prickling of my thumbs…” Jared murmured with a small smile. He snapped the book shut and replaced it.   
  
In front of the books was a row of small animal skulls – a mouse, a raccoon, a large bird like a crow, a cat, a small rodent, perhaps a squirrel. There were a handful of pretty rocks as well including an agate, a quartz crystal, and a piece of fool’s gold. It was all set neatly on an embroidered linen runner. He rubbed the edge between his fingers. Clean and starched.   
  
Against the opposite wall was an old green metal desk piled with notebooks and textbooks – a beat-up anatomy text, a photography book with Athens Independent School stamped on the cover, a text on natural history from the 1930s, and a chemistry book. A cork bulletin board hung above the desk. Pinned to it were a dozens of macabre photos similar to those in the file Morgan had shown him.   
  
There was only one of a person – Jensen himself. It was clearly taken at the same time as the one on the kitchen table, but Jensen was staring directly into the camera, and there was something dark and intense in his gaze. In the other photo, Jensen had appeared shy and vulnerable, but not here. Not at all. Jared pinned the photo back to the board.   
  
His gaze swept the room, looking for he knew not what. Some clue. An answer to this mystery. He was sure he’d not seen this room before or not like this. He opened the small closet, but it held nothing but a few pairs of men’s trousers and shirts that looked like vintage 1940s. A pair of polished Oxfords set on the floor. He closed the door and rubbed his eyes.   
  
If not for the lack of dust, he’d think no one had been in this room in ages. Maybe he had glanced in and overlooked it. Maybe. Jared sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled the drawer on the nightstand open – an ancient copy of SciFi Magazine, fingernail clippers, a Cat’s Eye marble, a fountain pen, a rabbit’s foot, and a folded piece of blue note paper. Jared unfolded the paper. _You are safe here,_ it read.   
  
Jared huffed. “Seriously?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “What am I, Alice in fucking Wonderland?” He folded the note up and set it on the nightstand.   
  
Despite his earlier nap at the kitchen table, he felt bone weary, and he was strangely calm. If whoever it was, well, Jensen, if Jensen wanted to kill him, he would have by now, right? Or was this the kind of game he played with all of them? Jared flopped on his back and stared up at the ceiling. Did Drew and the others get gifts of bone and hair and teeth – horrifically romantic mementos from a disturbed mind? Or was Jared special? A small smile pulled at his broad mouth. Special. Valued. He took a deep breath and blew it out. The same feeling of weariness that had struck him earlier crept up on him again. The cracks on the ceiling began to blur…   


 

  
As he rose from sleep, Jared was aware of two things – the unfamiliar scratch of the sheets and a languid satisfaction. He turned onto his side and breathed in the scent of Jensen’s skin and their passion. He rolled onto his stomach as though contact with the linens could resurrect the memory.   
  
He didn’t recall how it began, but he remembered the ghost of Jensen’s breath on his neck and the soft demand of his mouth waking him. It was familiar and dreamlike, but the hungry eyes and possessive hands told him it was no dream.   
  
His mind easily translated the features of the boy in the photograph to those of the man whose bed he was in. He knew the grip of Jensen’s hands on his flesh and the drag of teeth across his chest.   
  
Jensen’s hair was soft in his hands as that wicked mouth moved downward across the flat of his belly to give attention to his arousal. Jared sank his fingertips deeper to warm skin and the feel of solid bone beneath. Jensen was no phantom lover. He was real, and there was nothing shy about the way Jensen touched Jared as he suckled the head of Jared’s cock, savoring the salty slick leaking from the slit. Wicked green eyes held Jared’s gaze as Jensen swallowed him down.   
  
“Oh God,” Jared moaned. He tugged at Jensen’s sweat damp hair. This was so like the dreams, but instead of a bloody devil, his lover was a beautiful man with freckled skin. The difference ended there, and Jared knew what was next before Jensen let Jared’s cock slip from his mouth with a smirk. He buried his face lower, mouthing Jared’s balls before moving lower still.   
  
Jensen teased the furled opening with the tip of tongue and gently tested and teased the tight muscles, making them tremble. Jared’s breath caught in his throat and Jensen’s tongue pushed inside and retreated, again and again, a little deeper each time. Then, Jensen’s finger joined his tongue. He cricked his finger, finding that sensitive place that made Jared’s dick ooze and twitch. Jared spread himself like an offering, and Jensen worshipped every soft sensitive place until Jared was wet, open and panting.   
  
Jared couldn’t remember wanting anyone, anything more than this except in the dreams. How could this be real? Why did it seem inevitable just as the house had? It was almost as though this man was the embodiment of the house itself. They were meant for Jared, and he was meant for them.   
  
“Please,” he begged with another tug on Jensen’s hair.   
  
Jensen knelt between Jared’s sprawled legs and raised his head. His fingers stroked the tender skin on the inside of Jared’s thighs. His eyes had the dark intensity of the photograph. “What do you want?”   
  
“I want you inside me.”   
  
Jensen’s eyes softened and a self-satisfied smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He shuffled forward on his knees and slicked precome up the shaft of his cock. He held Jared’s gaze as he leaned forward and eased inside. Jared bit his lip and his toes curled as he was filled.   
  
Jensen paused when he was fully engulfed and said, “I knew you were the one.”   
  
“Yeah, yes,” Jared replied.   
  
  
  
Jared’s eyes fluttered open, fully awake now. Sunlight spiked through a tear in the yellowed roller blind, and he propped himself up on his elbows. The metal bedsprings creaked beneath him. He knew it wasn’t a dream. He was naked, twisted up in Jensen’s sheets. Alone. But he felt it in his body, the deep ache and satiation, and recalled it too plainly. It was real, every sweaty, spring shrieking moment.   
  
The other side of the bed was empty, but in the indentation of the pillow was a small bunch of phlox. Jared reached to pick it up and realized he was wearing the bracelet of hair, the one he’d left on the kitchen counter.   
  
He smiled. “Okay, I get it.”   
  
He threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. He bundled his clothes and shoes into his arms before heading down the backstairs to his room. Dumping the dirty clothing down the laundry shoot, he grabbed clean boxers and crossed the hall to take a shower.   
  
He stepped into the tub and waited for the water to run warm. Thinking of his time with Jensen, he almost regretted washing the evidence down the drain, but as he lathered his body, his fingers found small bruises, love bites, that deep ache and Jensen’s slick still inside him. Each mark brought back the memory, and he was left satisfying his own arousal under the heat of water that couldn’t match his lover.


	7. Chapter 7

_Jensen eased the back door shut and stopped short when he saw Elise sitting at the kitchen table._  
  
_“Do you know what time it is?” she asked._  
  
_He almost smirked at the cliché, but just nodded._  
  
_“What were you doing outside this time of night?”_  
  
_Jensen shrugged.  “I just went for a walk.”_  
  
_“Don’t,” she said. She stood and tightened the belt of her blue robe. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t know about that boy who was killed?”_  
  
_Jensen felt like the air was being squeezed from his lungs. His throat was too tight to push sound from._  
  
_“Do you think I don’t know what you did with him?”_  
  
_“How could you know?” he asked._  
  
_“He came here one night, didn’t he? I saw, I saw enough,” she said. “Do you have any idea what would happen if you were caught, if people knew about you?” Her voice shook. “Do you know how hard we’ve worked…”_  
  
_Jensen’s fists clenched at his sides. “To do what? Protect your reputation? Hide the evidence of your sin – yours and the doctor’s?”_  
  
_“Don’t you dare,” she said. Her voice was low and threatening. “That’s not true. How can you be so ungrateful? We gave you a home. A skill. He loves you.”_  
  
_“You told me lies, said my mother was a diseased whore,” Jensen sneered. “And you, you won’t even acknowledge me. That’s how much you both care.”_  
  
_She shook her head. “Who are you?”_  
  
_“I’m your shame.”_  
  
_Her eyes narrowed. “No.”_  
  
_“Why not fuck boys? At least I’m not fucking my sister. Hiding my bastard kid from sight.”_  
  
_“Stop lying! It’s not true!”_  
  
_“You stop lying. I’m not a fool,” Jensen said. He turned away from her. There on the counter was the wooden knife block. “But you keep up this insane fiction.”_  
  
_Her lip trembled with anger. “That’s ridiculous. There was a prostitute, she came to us pregnant…”_  
  
_“Stop it!” His words were like water on a hot griddle, and his lip curled. “Quit lying to me.”_  
  
_“We were trying to protect you,” she said. She drew herself up and spoke in clipped tones. “You don’t know how hard it was for him not to acknowledge you. He loves you.”_  
  
_Jensen slipped the carving knife from the block. “Yeah?” He turned around. “You want to know what his love feels like?”_  
  
_“Jensen, what…”_  
  
_His hand shot forward and the blade sank into her belly. His arm jerked upward. She clutched his wrist as the blade cut higher. For a moment there was just a thin line of blood in the blue of her robe. Then, a torrent of blood covered his hand, and she fell heavily against him. He pushed her away, and the knife came free in his hand. The smell of blood and viscera hit him as her entrails slid from the wound and she collapsed onto the floor._  
  
_“Elise!” The shout came from behind Jensen, and he was spun violently around. His forehead was smashed into the door facing. It stunned him a moment, but he feigned to the left and was able to twist away from the doctor He tried to jab at the doctor with the knife, but the doctor shoved him back against the door facing again._  
  
_“Oh God, Jensen, why?” Edward’s gaze searched Jensen’s face._  
  
_“Why not?” He pushed back against the older man._  
  
_“There’s something wrong with you,” Edward gritted out. He struggled with Jensen and grabbed his knife arm. “You think I don’t know you killed Sarah? Pretty and smart but defective.”_  
  
_“That was mercy!”_  
  
_“The boy, what was that?” Rage and tears shone in Edward’s eyes. “And now Elise?”_  
  
_The older man pushed the knife back toward Jensen who tried to twist free. He felt a slash across his upper arm, and his ears were ringing from the blow to the head. Blood was running into his left eye. Edward squeezed his wrist so hard, the bones ground together, Jensen still held the knife. He shifted his weight and brought his knee up hard between the doctor’s legs. He heard the woof of breath leave the man’s lungs, and he let go of Jensen’s wrist. As Edward bent forward, Jensen sliced the blade across his throat._  
  
_The doctor’s hand went to his neck, but it couldn’t stem the flood of bright blood. There was a wet sucking sound from the wound as the doctor tried to draw breath. He looked up at Jensen with wide surprised eyes. His mouth opened as though trying to speak and a stream of blood spilled from his lips. The doctor grasped at Jensen’s pant leg as his knees buckled and his fingers caught in frayed hole at the knee of Jensen’s jeans._  
  
_Jensen jerked away from his father’s grasp and stepped back. Black collapsed onto his side as blood pooled beneath his head. Jensen looked at the two bodies on the floor and the pattern of blood spilling across his mother’s spotless linoleum._  
  
_“I’m not defective,” he whispered._  
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
Downstairs, Jared set the coffee maker going before opening the door to the porch where Buddy was standing waiting for him.   
  
“Hey, Bud, you hungry?” The dog did a little dance around him as Jared filled the dog bowl with kibble. He dumped the old water from the other bowl and rinsed it out before refilling it.   
  
Jared went back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents of milk, eggs, ketchup, cheese … He got the milk out and poured a little in a mug for his coffee. He didn’t know what he wanted for breakfast. There was one stale doughnut left. It would barely make a dent in his hunger, but he poured himself a cup of coffee and ate the doughnut standing over the sink.   
  
Beyond the window, fluffy clouds dotted a brilliant blue sky, and the hills were the lush emerald of summer. Jared dumped half a cup of coffee down the drain. He felt anxious and excited, like he could jump out of his skin. He eyed the prescription bottle on the counter. Beside it, was the carved box that had contained the bracelet came. Jared toyed with the plaited hair around his wrist and contemplated the door to the pantry.   
  
Suddenly in motion, he crossed the kitchen and stepped into the pantry. Grabbing the hammer from his tool kit, he pulled the nails from the woodwork and pushed the secret door open. He paused only a moment before putting the hammer back and stepping into the passage. He retraced his steps from the previous day and slowly descended the narrow staircase.   
  
This time, the room wasn’t empty. Jensen was bent over a body on one of the tables. Jared took a few steps forward. Jensen looked up, and Jared felt the heat of his eyes even as they narrowed.   
  
Jared held up his hands and backed room toward the stairs. Jensen advanced with each step Jared took backward. Jensen picked something up from the counter as he passed.   
  
“You’re early,” he said.   
  
With his gaze fixed on Jensen, Jared misjudged the distance to the stairs and tripped on the bottom step. He fell back against the treads.   
  
“I, I’m sorry,” Jared said as he tried to right himself enough to back up the stairs. “I didn’t mean to…” To what? Intrude? Catch him in the act?   
  
Jensen advanced on him. He certainly was no boy. He was broad shouldered and wild eyed and just about the most beautiful thing Jared had ever seen. “It was supposed to be a surprise,” Jensen said as he leaned over Jared.   
  
“It is,” Jared managed to say.   
  
“Hush,” Jensen said as he brought his hand over Jared’s mouth and nose. The chemical smell of ether filled Jared’s lungs, and Jensen cradled his head as he went limp.   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
Jensen took his time. He knew Jared would be out for a while, so he laid him out on the long work table. Still, Jared was so tall that his feet hung off the end. Jensen pulled his shoes off one by one and then his socks. His feet were long with slender toes, almost delicately boned. Jensen’s palms slid over the soles, tracing the rise of the arch and curve of the ball. He gripped slender ankles as he looked up the length of the unconscious body and smiled.   
  
The moment had come a little sooner than he’d planned, but he could work with this. He had the essentials, and he’d always been good at improvising. He took up the heavy-duty shears. The worn denim was soft beneath his fingertips where he cut through the hem. How many hours had it spent concealing this warm skin? Jensen began to cut up the length of the trouser leg. No more. Nothing would stand between them. He cut straight up through the waist band and peeled back the denim.   
  
He’d always resisted the urge to touch without permission, but not now, not after Jared had surrendered so willingly. His fingertips trailed over the sparsely haired thigh, firm flesh, blood pulsing just beneath the skin. Jensen’s blood responded in kind, rushing low and heavy. He cut the other trouser leg and then the boxer-briefs off. Lifting the unconscious form, he eased the fabric from beneath it. Making quick work of the t-shirt with the shears, his Eros was revealed.   
  
Jensen couldn’t imagine anyone more beautiful. How could he have been so wrong about the others? From the glorious main of hair to the broad muscular shoulders, flat belly to where his long, thick cock lay vulnerable and soft in a nest of curls, Jared was perfection. With something like a whimper, Jensen bent over the body and nuzzled his face into the bronze thatch, breathing in deeply, filling his head with the incense of the divine.   
  
His need seeped wet and sticky through his trousers, and he almost couldn’t resist taking what he wanted. But, no, that’s not how he wanted it. He’d taken in haste before. This would be different. Jared would be different.   
  
There was a long porcelain work sink with a built-in drain board against the wall. He hadn’t had time to clean. No wonder Jared had tried to flee. He didn’t understand, but he would.   
  
Jensen chose a Mason jar full of dark liquid and took it back to the table. Dipping two fingers into it, he began to draw war paint on Jared’s cheeks, incantations across his chest, runes and odes down long arms and legs till he appeared a pagan warrior set to terrify and conquer.   
  
Jensen reverently kissed each finger that he slipped a gold ring onto – one with an oval onyx stone, another with rubies, one with a large square emerald, and a signet ring with an ornate B. Jared had a beautifully curved neck, like that of a cheetah, and Jensen looped a heavy gold chain around it and pressed his lips to the evenly beating pulse. The throb was echoed in the weight between his legs. He suckled the delicate skin till the blood rose to the surface in a mottled purple devotional. He left his mark again and again between runes and signs before drawing himself together and stepping back.   
  
It was good, but not enough. He’d been preparing a long while, but he’d run out of time. And now…he looked around him at the cold white tile and glinting steel. This was no place for his beloved to awaken. He pulled Jared into a sitting position and picked him up in a fireman’s carry. Thinking he heard a faint groan, he paused, but there were no other signs of consciousness, so he carried him through a door into a rough rock passage.   
  
After twenty or so feet, the passage opened to a large chamber of natural stone – a cavern with a shallow pool at the far end. Nearby on a low rock shelf was an ornate oak chair with velvet cushions. He bent down and carefully eased the man’s limp form onto the chair. He brushed Jared’s hair back from his brow and tipped his head against the back. He quickly tied Jared’s wrists to the cushioned arms. He was sure to be startled when he awoke.   
  
Jensen bent Jared’s knees just so and let his legs splay open. Jensen licked his lips and considered the lovely feast before him – like a god upon a throne, a god of blood and vengeance and lust. His god needed a mantle and crown. And a worthy sacrifice.   
  
  
  
  
  
There was a damp not quite chill to the air accompanied by an iron-rich smell that had anxiety pushing Jared to consciousness. His head felt heavy and fuzzy with confusion. He struggled to move, and his eyes fluttered open. Stone rose overhead like a Gothic cathedral carved by moving water. Candlelight threw shadows across the uneven surface creating dark hollows and crags.   
  
His first instinct was to call out for Jensen, but he held back. He didn’t know this place. He tried again to rise, but realized his wrists were restrained, tied to chair with gold cord. His hands and arms were streaked with blood. He froze as he did a mental inventory of sensations. Other than the dull headache, he didn’t appear to be hurt.   
  
But then, no, he was naked but for a blood-matted fur of some kind over his shoulders and something…he could feel something on his head. He shifted as much as he could and saw that the blood smears covered his chest, belly, and legs as well.   
  
“What the fuck?” he whispered. Jensen had said something about a surprise. Was this the kind of surprise the others had gotten? Was this some kind of ritual that Jensen performed before each kill. Jared shook his head remembering the night. “No.”   
  
He heard footsteps then and surveyed the murky shadows. Jensen seemed to materialize from the darkness. He carried in his arms a young man with blond hair and golden skin – Billy, the delivery boy. Jensen knelt as he laid the boy at Jared’s feet. He bowed his head as though in supplication.   
  
Jared wasn’t sure what was expected of him and in confusion asked, “What is this?”   
  
Jensen turned his face upward. Candlelight fell across a perfect plane of cheek, full lips, and doe eyes. The cherub at the Easter egg hunt. The beautiful teen.   
  
“It’s for you.”   
  
“An offering,” Jared said.   
  
“I knew you’d understand,” Jensen said. Jared saw the dagger in the Jensen’s hand then, and before he could speak, it was plunged into the Billy’s chest. Jared’s entire body jerked in sympathetic response, but he couldn’t look away as blood gushed from the wound. The dagger opened the wound and moved deeper. Jensen’s hand dug into the gash, probed and twisted with the knife, and withdrew with a shiny lump of flesh. A heart. He held it out to Jared.   
  
“For you.”   


 

  
Jared shook his head. “I don’t want it.” He gripped the arms of the chair and tried to control his breathing.   
  
Jensen’s pretty mouth twisted into a leer, and he eyed Jared’s groin. “I think you do.”   
  
Naked as he was, Jared couldn’t hide or deny his arousal. Jensen crawled over the now dead boy and between Jared’s legs. He grasped Jared’s cock, smearing it with fresh arterial blood – once, twice, up over the head, and down.   
  
“No!” Jared protested, but Jensen held his gaze as his tongue lapped a pale spot onto the delicate skin. The sensation sent a jolt up Jared’s spine.   
  
“You’ve been anointed,” Jensen said. “You are the one.”   
  
Jared fought the darkness. “The, no, I…” The heat of Jensen’s mouth stole his words. He gasped, and the metal rich scent of blood caught in his throat. There was no getting away.   
  
“You are the body,” Jensen said. He licked up the shaft. “You are the blood.”   
  
He arched in the chair as Jensen’s throat opened for him. Jensen’s hands gripped his thighs and pulled them upward. Jared’s balls were heavy and tension pooled at the base of his spine. Jensen pulled off and licked at the blood smeared over his lips. He gave Jared a bloody smile before leaning back in and mouthing at his balls. They were so sensitive and full, Jared nearly whimpered as Jensen rolled one and then the other on his tongue and nipped at the delicate skin.   
  
Lifting Jared’s legs higher over his shoulders, Jensen lapped even lower, along Jared’s perineum and his furled hole. Jensen buried his pretty mouth there as though seeking sustenance. Jensen groaned as his tongue slid even deeper inside him, and Jared’s resistance disappeared.   
  
His cock bobbed and trailed precome on his blood smeared belly, and his hole was loose and needy. He squirmed in the chair, helpless with his legs hitched over Jensen’s shoulders. This was his dream, the dream of the devil and blood and lust.   
  
“Please,” he moaned just as he had in the night.   
  
Jensen looked up at him. He crouched up on his knees and slicked his cock with blood. He held Jared’s gaze as the head of his cock slid along Jared’s crack till it found its mark. The head pressed into the loose opening. Jared couldn’t stop the moan that escaped as he was stretched open.   
  
“All of it,” he whispered.   
  
“I knew you were like me,” Jensen said. His lip curled as he pushed forward.   
  
“No, no…”   
  
“I know about your parents.” Jensen’s hands were sticky slick on Jared’s thighs as he thrust shallowly into him.   
  
“No.”   
  
Jensen’s hips snapped forward. “You’re like me.”   
  
“No,” Jared moaned again, but the image was there of a knife slicing into the loose skin beneath his mother’s chin and his father’s dull brown eyes flying open a moment too late, just before the blade cut through the fatty flesh around his throat. He remembered peeling gloves so bloody from his hands that they were stained red along the seam lines.   
  
“You are.” Jensen pressed bloody lips to Jared’s mouth. “You are. Admit it.” He thrust deeper and harder.   
  
Jared turned his face upward and let out a cry. Like an insect pinned to board, he was at the mercy of his captor, this demon, this beautiful pitiless man who was taking him apart with each bruising thrust.   
  
“I adore you,” Jensen declared. Lips tacky with blood laid kisses along Jared’s throat.   
  
Jensen’s impromptu lubricant was becoming sticky too and the friction too much. Pain joined pleasure with each movement until Jensen’s rhythm faltered and his release slicked the way as he continued thrusting, filling, winding up the tension. Jared was filled with the blood of the innocent and the seed of a killer. He gripped the arms of the chair and arched, trembling as the tension broke, pleasure washed over him as his release painted his chest anew.   
  
Jensen stilled inside him, and Jared trembled with aftershocks. Jensen leaned down and licked Jared’s come from his chest, and his softening cock slipped from Jared’s hole. Jensen knelt and pushed his seed back inside with his tongue. Jared shuddered.   
  
Jensen sat back on his heels and picked up the boy’s heart again. He held it in both hands and offered it to Jared. “Will you take my offering now?”   
  
“Untie me,” Jared said.   
  
Jensen held his gaze for a moment before transferring the organ to his left hand and picking up the dagger. He got the tip under the cord around Jared’s right wrist and cut it. Then, he did the same with the left. Jared stretched his fingers and then took the heart from Jensen. It was still warm and surprisingly light.   
  
He realized he’d been a coward when he slit his parents’ throats. This in his hand was real. This was life.   
  
“I don’t want this,” he said.   
  
Jensen’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open.   
  
“I want yours,” Jared said.   
  
Jensen nodded and put the tip of the dagger just below his sternum, pointed upward. Jared moved quickly, slipping from the chair, and straddling Jensen’s knees.   
  
“No,” he said. He grasped Jensen’s wrist and moved the blade upward, over Jensen’s heart, and cut a shallow gash. “I want you to keep it for me.” Jared curled in and pressed his mouth to the wound. Jensen let out a low moan. His hands came up and tangled in Jared’s hair, dislodging the crown he’d set there. It rattled as it fell to the floor. Jared looked over at it – dozens of finger and toe bones meticulously wired together along with bits of fur and feathers.   
  
He gave the wound another lick and sat up. “Will you do that for me? Will you protect it and keep it?”   
  
Jensen’s eyes were glazed, and he nodded as though drugged. “Always.”   
  
Jared kissed him, their mouths sealed with Jensen’s blood. “Then you are mine. Always.”   
  
Jensen’s eyes glistened and he took Jared’s face in his bloody-stained hands. “Come with me.”   
  
“Where?”   
  
“Just over there.” Jensen nodded toward the pool of water. “It’s cold and pure.”   
  
The chill of the water was a shock the moment Jared waded in. He untied the mantle and left it on the rocks at the edge. He and Jensen splashed each other with water till it ran red and then clear from their bodies. They stumbled shivering from the pool.   
  
“Come,” Jensen said. “I have clothes in the other room.”   
  
“What about him?” Jared asked of the body.   
  
“Don’t concern yourself,” Jensen said. “Come along.”   
  
Jared followed Jensen back down the passageway and into the lab. Jensen got green surgical scrubs from a metal cabinet and handed Jared a top and pants.   
  
“Where are my clothes?”   
  
“Ruined, I’m afraid, but your shoes are there on the counter.” Jensen got scrubs for himself, and Jared couldn’t help taking in the view. He was sure Jensen had seen him naked dozens of times, but it was the first time he’d had the chance to get a good look at Jensen who caught him watching as he pulled his pants on. He looked away with a flutter of lashes, and color rose in his cheeks. The shy boy again.   
  
“You’re beautiful,” Jared said as he pulled the pants on.   
  
Jensen pulled a top on over his head. “I’m a freak.”   
  
Jared took him by the elbow and turned Jensen to face him. “Don’t say that. You’re who I’ve been looking for all this time.”   
  
Jensen looked up at him, wide-eyed, searching for any trace of a lie.   
  
“You’re right,” Jared said. “I am like you.”   
  
“We belong together,” Jensen said.   
  
“Yes, so what do we do with the boy?”   
  
Jensen’s lips slowly curled into a smile.   
  
  
  
~~~   
  
  
  
“Why’d you do it?” Jared asked. They were in his bed this time. He lay on his back with Jensen at his side. His gaze was on the dark ceiling, but images of bloodletting and butchering shuffled through his mind. Jensen worked with the skill and precision of a surgeon. It was a beautiful thing.   
  
Jensen shifted. He was little more than the rustle of sheets and a pale shoulder in the darkness. “What?”   
  
“Your parents,” Jared said. “Is that what started it?”   
  
“That’s two questions,” Jensen murmured. He let silence lie between them a moment. “I don’t know how to begin answering the second, but the first, because they denied me.”   
  
“That you were their child.”   
  
“Yes,” Jensen said.   
  
“That simple.”   
  
“No, not simple at all, but … yes, ultimately.” Jensen’s fingers traced Jared’s arm. “And you?”   
  
“They took away the only thing that ever loved me unconditionally.”   
  
“Ah, well, now you have two.”   
  
Jared turned his head. He could just make out the line of Jensen’s cheek and jaw and the hollow of an eye.   
  
“You brought Buddy here, didn’t you?”   
  
“I did well, didn’t I?”   
  
“You did.” Jared turned on his side toward Jensen and sought out his mouth in the dark. Jensen’s arm slipped around his waist, pulling him close.   
  
“I can’t tell you what it means to me that you did that and you understand.” Jared felt his throat tighten.   
  
“I’ll keep you safe,” Jensen murmured against his skin.   
  
Jared laid his hand over Jensen’s heart. “I know you will.”


	8. Chapter 8

For the next few days, Jared continued repairing things around the house and making minor decorating changes. Jensen occasionally helped, but he would disappear for hours at a time only to reappear at odd times and places. Jared didn’t ask for explanations, and Jensen didn’t offer any. He was there when Jared needed him. That was enough.

He mostly saw Jensen after the sun began setting. He liked to cook enough for both of them. He’d put a tray in the dumbwaiter and send it up to the second floor where they’d eat together in Jared’s bed, drink wine, fuck, and read, but not always in that order. Sometimes the food got cold while they were getting their fill of each other. The nights were long, and Jared slept in late. He knew that would have to change if he opened a B&B, but this was like a honeymoon, he reasoned. This was their time.

Jensen was off doing whatever Jensen did alone and Jared had been snaking the drain on the utility sink on the porch when the phone rang. He stepped into the kitchen and picked up.

“Hello?” He shoved his hair back from his brow.

“Jared? Sheriff Morgan.”

Jared was immediately wary. “Yeah, what can I do for you?”

“It’s about the photos of that kid you said you had.”

“Oh! Yeah, that completely slipped my mind, Sheriff. We had that big storm, and I had a mess of limbs to clean up … I’m sorry.”

“No problem. If you could just bring by in the next couple of days or I could run up.”

“No need.” Jared twirled the phone cord around his finger. “I’ll be in town in the morning.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I’m thinking there should have been closer analysis of the blood from the scene,” Morgan said. “As luck would have it, evidence has been preserved including hair samples from the door frame.”

“The killer’s?” A shadow fell across the wall, and Jared looked up to find Jensen in the doorway.

“Yeah,” Morgan said. “Don’t know if the blood will still yield the DNA we need, but worth a try.”

“Right,” Jared said to Morgan, but his gaze was locked with Jensen’s. “I’ll, um, I’ll bring that by in the morning then.”

“Great, thanks,” Morgan said.

Jared put the phone receiver back in the cradle and let his hands fall to his side. Jensen crossed the space between them and put his hands on Jared shoulders.

“What is it?”

“I’ve done something completely stupid,” Jared said. “I was trying to figure out what was going on here. I went to the library and the museum to get more information about the house and the family, and I learned about the murder. I was angry that no one had told me before I bought the house. I went to Morgan to ask him about it, and I, I asked about you.”

Jensen pursed his lips and nodded.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were a secret,” Jared said. “And now you’re not. Morgan wants to see if the hair and blood of the unknown assailant was …”

“Me.”

Jared nodded. “I can’t believe, I didn’t think. I was just so caught up in trying to…”

Jensen cut him off. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

“I’ll help you.”

Jensen frowned.

“I will. I want to.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jensen smiled and his eyes sparkled.

“But he has to disappear, Jen. There can’t be any evidence.”

Jensen’s arms slipped around him. “Not even a small memento?”

“Not this time.”

Jensen nodded. “All right.” He tipped his head up for a kiss, and Jared accepted the offering.

 

~~~

 

Jared had received a call from Jensen less than hour ago. He was at the boat ramp and wanted Jared to pick him up. Park between the maintenance garage and the tree line, Jensen had said. Jared had done as asked. The truck bounced as something heavy dropped into the bed of the truck. Jensen got in.

“What was that?” Jared asked.

“A gift,” Jensen said. “You’ll see when we get home.”

He had. Morgan was bound but unharmed.

“What did you do to him?”

“Just a little ether,” Jensen said. “He’ll be fine. For awhile.”

They’d gotten him downstairs with some difficulty.

“How do you usually get them down here?” Jared had asked.

“There’s a tunnel.”

“Seriously?” So it wasn’t a myth, Jared thought. “Why didn’t we use it?”

“It’s not accessible to the truck,” Jensen said as he secured Morgan to the chair. “It was closer to bring him in this way.”

“So you usually carry them all this way by foot?”

Jensen shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not that far.”

He stood and looked Morgan over as though assessing the man’s likelihood of getting out of his bonds. Jensen had bound Morgan’s hands to the arms of a sturdy wooden chair, bound his ankles together and secured them to the chair. Morgan’s chin rested against his chest. The chair was placed over the floor drain with its back to the surgical tables and other medical equipment.

“You’re stronger than you look,” Jared said. He turned Jensen toward him and wrapped his arms around him. Jared loved the feel of all that solid muscle and the warm scent of him – fall leaves and bay rum and passion – but he loved the look of him too. From Jensen’s infinitely expressive mouth to his adoring eyes, there was nothing to improve upon.

“What are you doing, counting freckles?” Jensen asked.

Jared grinned. “Was I staring?”

“You were.”

“Because I can’t get enough of you.”

Jensen’s expression softened. Jared thought he saw his eyes glisten as he looked away. “How about a drink while we wait?”

“Yeah, sure.” Jared sat down in a chair facing Morgan, and Jensen went to the lab counter where he took down a bottle of bourbon from the shelf of medicines. “He’s okay?”

“Yes,” Jensen said. He poured two glasses of bourbon and handed one to Jared before sitting down in a chair beside him. “He’ll wake up soon.”

“You’re sure no one saw you?” Jared asked.

Jensen side-eyed him. “No one ever sees me unless I want them to.”

Jared smiled. “No, of course not. What was I thinking?”

Jensen smirked. “So what do you want to do with him?”

“Talk,” Jared said, “at first.” He crossed his ankle over his knee.

“Ah.” Jensen smiled and took a drink of bourbon.

Morgan groaned. His head bobbed slightly. Jared got up and crouched down in front of him. He lightly slapped the man’s cheeks. Morgan raised his head slightly and blinked. As his eyes began to focus, he glared at Jared.

“Hey there, sheriff,” Jared said. “Welcome back.”

“You…” Morgan’s gaze slipped past Jared to Jensen who sat with his elbows on his knees and the tumbler of bourbon cradled in his hands.

Jared glanced over his shoulder at Jensen. “Yeah, that’s Jensen.”

“I don’t get it,” Morgan said. “He killed all those boys. What do you think he’s going to do to you?”

“To me?” Jared chuckled. “I can think of a few things.”

Morgan looked from one to the other before settling on Jared again. “Whitfield was right. You killed them,” he said. “Well, aren’t you a pair.”

“We are, yeah,” Jensen said.

“You aren’t just a lunatic,” Morgan said. “You’re a fucking butcher.”

As Jared rose, he brought his fist up under Morgan’s chin and snapped his head back.

“Watch your tongue,” Jared said. He hit Morgan again and bloodied his lip.

Morgan spit blood onto the floor. “Why? You’re going to kill me anyway.”

Jensen got up then and went to the medical cabinet. He came back with a scalpel and large set of forceps, which he offered to Jared. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Jared looked quizzical a moment and then smiled. “Yes, thanks.” He took the medical instruments, and Jensen stepped behind the sheriff. He grasped the man’s head – one hand around his forehead holding him tight against the chair and the other around his jaw, which he forced open.

Jared bent down and grasped the wriggling muscle with the forceps. His browed furrowed with concentration as he cut at the base of the man’s tongue. Morgan’s shriek was like an ice pick in the ear. Blood pooled in his mouth, making it impossible for Jared to see. He just kept cutting till the flesh came free. The bloody lump dangled from the forceps like a piece of raw beef liver. Crimson flowed down Morgan’s chin and over his shirt.

“Cutting someone’s throat can be a mercy,” Jared said. “There are so many worse things one can do to a person. Don’t you agree?”

Morgan made a gurgling sound and coughed. Blood sprayed from his mouth. Jensen loosened his grip and stroked the man’s salt and pepper hair.

“He has pretty hair,” Jensen observed.

“No mementoes, Jen, remember?”

“Yeah.” He pulled Morgan’s head back with his left hand and held out his right. Jared handed him the scalpel. Morgan’s body was rigid against the restraints. Jensen reached around Morgan’s neck and placed the tip of the scalpel below his left ear.

“I’ve watched you,” he whispered. “I know all about you. Who you love. Who you fuck. Who you fuck over. You have no right to judge.”

He drew the blade across Morgan’s throat the torrent of blood renewed. Jared squatted down and untied Morgan’s ankles from the chair. He took a long rope, threaded through the ankle restraints and then threaded it over the main floor joist. He began to pull the body upward as Jensen untied the wrist restraints. When they had the body hanging upside down over the floor drain, they tied the rope off.

Jared caught his breath. “So this is what they mean by ‘bleeding like a stuck pig.’”

Jensen tossed back the rest of his drink and raised an eyebrow like a salute.

 

 

Tiny electric fairy lights glittered off the glass enclosure of the pool. The lower windows were open, and the breeze carried the scent of jasmine. Music played softly, and the buffet table along one wall had been pretty well picked over. Most of the guests had gone home, and only those Jared new best in town remained.

Lola’s husband, Frank, and Nita’s husband, Dan, stood arguing sports with Chad and Jim Beaver in one corner. Jared sat at a table with Nita, her aunt Nona, and Lola.

“Dinner was amazing,” Nita said. “The brisket was incredible.”

“That’s a real complement coming from you,” Jared said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He took a sip of bourbon.

“I don’t s’pose I could get the recipe?” she asked. Jared had noticed Nita’s warm dark eyes and dazzling smile the day he met her, but she was looked like another person out of her Bishop’s uniform and in a mango colored dress that played up her rich skin tone.

Jared returned her smile. “Sorry, family secret,” he replied.

“Can’t hurt for asking,” she said.

“Not at all,” Jared said. “I hate to bring this up, but I’ve been kind of out of touch getting things ready. Has there been any news about the sheriff?”

Nita shook her head.

“Not a thing as far as I’ve heard,” Lola said. “How could a man just up and disappear like that? Gives me the creeps.”

“There’s always been a darkness to this town,” Nona said.

“He sure did like brisket,” Nita said. “Used to come in every time we had it on special – that and meatloaf. Never saw a man eat meatloaf like he did, drowned in ketchup.”

“Well, the good thing is that there hasn’t been any more disappearances or murders,” Lola said. “Let’s hope that’s ended.”

“Absolutely,” Jared said. “So, Lola, is this party anything like you remembered?”

“It’s better,” she said. “The food is better. The company’s better. Hell, there’s nothing about being seventeen I miss…well, maybe my hair.” She put a palm to her thin dyed hair and let out a raspy guffaw. “If only we could have adult brains and young bodies.”

They all raised a glass in salute.

“Pfft, look at you,” Lola said to Jared. “You have no idea what we’re talking about, but you will. Mark my words. Time catches up with you when you least expect it.” She downed the rest of her manhattan. “Where’s Frank? We should leave before I get maudlin.”

“You don’t have to go,” Jared said. “I appreciate hearing the wisdom of my elders.”

Lola had just stood, and she put her fists on her hips. “Elders. Listen, boy, I can still turn you over my knee, which would be a lot more fun for me than you.”

Jared laughed, and Nita laughed right along with him. Lola bent and placed a kiss on Jared’s forehead.

“Boys,” she said before tottering off on her high-heels toward her husband.

“She’s quite a character,” Jared said. “And good-hearted.”

“She is,” Nita said. Her husband Dan came over.

“We should get going,” he said. “Need to get Mizz Nona home.”

“Don’t go blaming me, Daniel,” Nona ordered, but she held out her arm for Dan to take and help her up.

Jared stood as well. “Let me walk y’all to the door.” Lola and Frank were already headed that way.

Jared escorted the remaining couples and Jim Beaver to the front door where he got hugs from Lola and Nita. Jim shook Jared’s hand and gave Buddy an ear rub before following the others out. Jared locked the door and returned to the pool area. Chad had sat down at the table.

“Nice party,” he said.

Jared chuckled. “Sorry it wasn’t the house warming party you were hoping for.”

“Nah, it’s okay.” Chad was picking at a plate of canapés and didn’t look up. “I get it, you know. You’re opening a business soon and you have to get the locals on board to support you.”

“Wow, yeah,” Jared said. “That’s totally it.”

Chad looked up and shrugged. “Anyway, we’re not twenty anymore, right?”

“No, I guess not. Still, that was a little tame for my taste.” Jared downed the last swig of bourbon in his glass.

Chad grinned. “Right? Are there no eligible chicks in this town you could have invited?”

“Yeah, about that…they heard you were coming.”

Chad threw a wadded up napkin at Jared. “Screw you, Jaybird.”

Jared stood. “Come on. Help me clean up a bit.”

“This is why you invited me, right?”

“Yes, the only reason.” Jared grabbed a tall kitchen waste can and began throwing napkins and food debris away. “You want to take this?”

“It’s what I live for,” Chad said. He took the trash can and continued the task while Jared got a wash bin from the kitchen and began filling it with dirty serving dishes while Chad tossed out utensils, plates and glasses – all plastic because of the proximity to the pool.

“So you like it here?” Chad asked.

“I do, yeah,” Jared said. “In unexpected ways.”

“Yeah?” Chad’s head came up. “How so? Secret lover? Bangin’ that country vet?”

“Funny,” Jared said. “No, you know, it’s just peaceful. I can really hear myself think and there’s a novel brewing. I know it.”

“That’s great, but isn’t it, you know, lonely? I mean, I know you like your books and all. We always had to pry you out of your room back at UT, but dude, you gotta get out or bring someone in. Mail order bride or husband or whatever, you know?”

“I’m fine, man,” Jared said as he picked up the loaded bin and started for the kitchen. “I’ve got Buddy for company and I can take care of the rest.”

“I did not need to hear the details,” Chad followed him with the trash can.

Jared set the bin on the counter and began loading the dishwasher. Jared grinned. Chad was the closest thing he had to a brother, and creeping him out was never not fun.

Buddy was wandering between the two men sniffing the air and checking the floor for dropped tidbits. “Bud,” Jared said. The dog came running with his nose up as Jared held out a bite of brisket left on a plate. The dog sat and took the morsel from Jared’s fingers.

“He’s a great dog, man,” Chad said.

“Yeah,” Jared said. He rubbed Buddy’s ears. “Yes, you are. You are a great dog.” Buddy’s tail thumped on the floor. “Okay, time for bed, Bud.” The dog went to his bed on the porch and curled up. “You should get a dog, man.”

“Maybe I should,” Chad said. “I mean, if I can’t take care of a dog, what kind of husband material am I? And women love dogs, right? A dog would be a great ice breaker at the park.”

“Yeah, that too,” Jared said. He filled the detergent cup and turned the dishwasher on.

Chad rubbed his hands through his hair and yawned. “Damn, I’m tired.”

“It’s the country air,” Jared said.

“Whatever, I’m going to bed.”

“Okay, the coffee maker will be ready and there’s bagels and cream cheese in the fridge, if you wake up before me.”

“Do you know me?” Chad asked.

“Yeah, never mind.” Jared grinned. “Night.”

“Night.” Chad flipped him the bird as he exited the kitchen.

Jared went back to the pool area and gave it a once over. There things that needed straightened up, but nothing that couldn’t wait till morning. He turned off the lights and went inside, locking the door behind him.

He could feel eyes upon him, but he didn’t acknowledge it.

He turned off the overhead light but left the fixture on over the sink. He wiped down the counters and set up the coffee maker for morning.

“Did they like the brisket?”

Jared’s gaze swept the room to make sure Chad wasn’t about. He knew the voice and from where it came. The pantry door stood ajar, but there was only darkness to be seen within. Jared looked around again and approached it.

“They adored it,” he said. “Now go wait for me upstairs. I have to lock up.”

A hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “I took care of that. Come with me.” Jensen’s voice was nearly a growl, and Jared’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. “Now,” Jensen demanded. “No one will see.”

Jared stepped into the pantry and pulled the door shut behind him. “Just…”

Jensen shoved him hard against the wall and body pressed him from hips to chest. His teeth scraped along Jared’s jaw before his mouth settled on Jared’s pulse point.

“Jen, I need to…”

Jensen’s cut his words off with a kiss. “It can wait.” He entwined his fingers in Jared’s hair and tugged on it. Jared let his head fall back against the wall to give Jensen better access to his throat again. “I can’t,” Jensen said. “Come with me.”

Jensen was right. There was nothing left to do that couldn’t wait till morning, and Jensen’s urgency was infecting Jared as well. Besides, while Jared had been socializing, Jensen had been doing whatever it was that Jensen did while he was alone.

“Okay, okay,” Jared whispered, but Jensen didn’t let up. His mouth was warm and wet on that spot just below Jared’s ear. While one hand gripped his hair, the other pushed beneath his shirt, and a thumb rubbed a nipple.

“Oh God,” Jared groaned. He was stuck between a broom and a mop, so he couldn’t ease his way to the hidden door. “Not here, Jen. Come on.”

“Yeah,” Jensen said. He shifted his stance slightly as though planning to move, but didn’t stop his attentions to Jared’s body. Then he stopped and nuzzled Jared’s neck. “Yeah. Let’s go.” He pulled away but gripped Jared’s wrist again as they stepped through the hidden doorway at the back of the pantry.

They made their way down the passage, but went up instead of down. At the first landing, that led to Jared’s bedroom, Jensen didn’t stop. He pulled him toward another flight.

“Where are we going?” Jared whispered.

“You’ll see. It’s just for you,” Jensen said. Jared could hear the excitement in his lover’s voice.

They turned left and made their way up another narrow staircase along the back wall of the house, and at the next landing turned left again and went up a staircase that cut between third-floor rooms to the attic.

Jensen had found the passages on his own when he was a kid, and he hadn’t shown them all to Jared who was surprised when the staircase let out into the attic between a chimney and the dormer.

He was even more surprised by how the attic had changed since he’d been up there. Everything had been dusted and rearranged more neatly. Jensen had hung lanterns from the roof joists for light. And there was a bed of sorts – a mattress on the floor – neatly made up with linens in an rose pattern that were slightly yellowed with age, but it was the headboard that drew Jared’s attention. Dozens of bones had been arranged to fan out in an arch – femurs, fibulas and tibias, ribs, ulnas and humerus, and vertebrae.

“Do you like it?” Jensen asked.

Jared could feel Jensen’s breath on the back of his neck. “It’s amazing,” he said.

Jensen’s arms went around him, and he placed a kiss on the back of Jared’s neck. “You’re amazing,” Jensen said. “I just wanted you to know.”

The blood streaked I adore you, flashed in Jared’s mind, and he turned in Jensen’s arms. “I know how you feel about me,” he said. “And it means the world to me, but you have to be careful now. You know that, right?”

Jensen looked up through his lashes. His eyes were like green amber in the lamplight.

“Jen, come on. We just found each other. I don’t want to lose you. Morgan’s disappearance is a lovely mystery,” Jared said. He pulled Jensen in tighter to his body. “We’ve got a freezer full of meat, hm? And you’ve got me now. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“No?” Jensen cocked an eyebrow.

Jared chuckled. “Not with the bone or flesh or blood of others, but I’ll take yours always.”

Jensen was already walking him backward toward the bed.

“Wait, wait,” Jared said.

“No more waiting,” Jensen said.

Jared managed to turn them around with Jensen’s back to the bed. “Where is it?”

Jensen’s pretty mouth curled into a sly smile. He reached into his hip pocket and extracted a folding knife. Jared took it from him and opened it. “Take your clothes off.”

Jensen’s mouth dropped open, and he let out a shuddery breath. His eyes were lust dark as he began shedding clothes. Jared didn’t take his eyes off him as he toed off his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt, and shimmied out of his trousers. There was nothing beneath them, and he stood naked before Jared.

“You’re all the offering I need,” Jared said as he took a step forward. He pressed the tip of the knife to Jensen’s chest. “Lie down.”

Jensen put a hand behind him and eased himself to the mattress without taking his gaze from Jared. He stretched out on his back with his arms behind his head as though playful, but Jared knew what it cost Jensen to be so open and vulnerable. Jared quickly shucked off his own clothes. With the knife in his hand, he knelt at the foot of the bed. He crawled up over Jensen and pressed the blade to his chest, right along the line of the original scar and left a thin trail of red that blossomed in a moment.

Jensen gasped as Jared licked along the line. This was Jensen’s life right here on his tongue, salty and iron rich. It called out to Jared’s blood, which hardened his arousal. He suckled at the wound, and Jensen moaned, bucked beneath him, cock leaving a snail trail along Jared’s belly. Jared lifted his head and kissed Jensen, leaving a bloody smear on his lips.

“Please,” Jensen asked. “Please, I want to taste you.”

Jared shook his head. “Not yet.” He eased back and grasped Jensen’s cock. The head was already slick with precome. He smeared it down the shaft and more spurted out. He could work with this. He put two fingers in his mouth and got them nice and wet before reaching behind him and pushing them into himself. Jensen gripped Jared’s thighs as he watched. Jared tried to open himself up well but he was too anxious to feel Jensen inside him.

He rose up and pressed the head of Jensen’s cock to his opening before lowering himself onto it. There was some burn with the abrupt stretch, and Jared’s head dropped back and staring unseeing at the rafters. He focused only on the joining of their bodies and the way he was filled in the most satisfying way. This was what he needed, what he’d always needed, this gorgeous man laid out before him, not just sex, not just the physical connection, but the worship, the offering of everything.

He started to move, watching Jensen’s face, his every breath and flicker of expression, and Jensen watched him in return, as he’d been watching from the beginning. Blunt nails dug into Jared’s skin, and Jensen’s hips rolled upward, filling Jared deeper, to the root. Jared leaned forward, fingertips digging into the wound.

Jensen cried out, hips jerking and back bowing as his hit orgasm hit. Jared dropped down and stopped moving. Jensen’s flesh twitched and pulsed deep inside him. Jared’s cock was achingly hard and drooling precome onto Jensen’s belly. It would take little movement for him to come untouched, but he held back. He knew what Jensen needed.

“You’re part of me,” he said.

Jensen grabbed Jared’s wrist and brought his crimson fingers to his mouth. He sucked on them as he began to soften within Jared. When his cock slipped free, Jared moved backward, kneeling at the end of the bed with is knees spread. Jensen moved to his hands and knees and crawled toward him. He prostrated himself before Jared, turned his head to kiss the inside of each thigh, licked up the length of Jared’s shaft and opened his mouth. He was entirely passive, letting Jared push in, hold his head as his hips pumped, gentle at first, and then deeper and harder.

It took little, and Jared held Jensen in place with the soft brush of hair beneath his hands as he came down Jensen’ throat. Jensen didn’t try to pull away, and Jared stroked his hair as the last waves of pleasure washed through him. He reluctantly pulled himself from the wet heat of Jensen’s mouth and drew Jensen to his knees. Jensen looked wrecked – chin bloody, lips swollen, eyes wet.

“I waited so long for you,” Jensen said.

“You’re not alone in that.” Jared said. “Come here. Lie with me.” He stretched out on the bed with Jensen at his side. Jensen leaned on one elbow and traced Jared’s cheekbone and jawline with his fingertips.

“I’ll never let anyone harm you,” Jensen said.

“I know,” Jared said. “And you know I’ll protect you. For now, you’re a secret, but one day, there will be a guest here who will fall in love with me and never leave.”

Jensen’s eyes widened. “I don’t mind being your secret. I’m not, I don’t…”

“Jen, you don’t have to socialize,” Jared said. “I just want to not have to have a plausible cover story should anyone see you.”

Jensen frowned. “I don’t like people, and we don’t need the money. I have plenty. It could just be the two of us. You could write.”

Jensen laid down and nuzzled Jared’s neck. His fingers mapped Jared’s ribs and one leg wrapped around him. Jensen was growing hard against his hip. “I’m real,” he said.

“I,” Jared stammered, “I know you are.”

“You make me real. Without you, I’m a ghost.”

Jared chuckled. “The day I looked at the house, Lola told me that the past couple families thought the place was haunted.”

“It is.”

“No, you are,” Jared said. “And I am.”

“You brought me to life.” Jensen rolled on top of Jared and looked down into his eyes. “Someday, we’ll die here, and we’ll be the ghosts.”

“Mm, I don’t want to think about that,” Jared said. He spread his legs and cradled Jensen between them. “This is too good.”

A smile slowly spread across Jensen’s face as Jared spread his legs wider and wrapped them around Jensen’s hips. Slicked by his own release, Jensen thrust back inside.

“I wish we could crawl inside each other’s skins,” Jensen said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jared clung to Jensen’s shoulders, pulling him close, deeper. “More.”

Jensen brushed Jared’s hair out of his eyes. “I adore you. You don't know how much."

"I do." Jared gasped as Jensen filled him.

"You couldn't." Jensen pressed a kiss to Jared's throat. "I died, darling, and you brought me back."

 

~~~

Sunlight blazed through the kitchen window, and the coffee maker burbled the last of the water through the grounds. Buddy’s nails clicked on the linoleum floor as he followed Jared, hoping for a treat. Bacon sizzled on the stove, and Jared put a pan of biscuits in the oven.

“Hey, man,” Chad said as he stumbled into the kitchen in pajama pants and a t-shirt. He plopped down in a chair at the table.

Jared already had a cup out and was filling it with coffee. He set in front of Chad. “A little too much to drink?”

“Maybe,” Chad said. “I was going to take some aspirin before I went to bed, but I couldn’t find any…or you.”

“What?” Jared was putting milk in his coffee.

“You, dude, I couldn’t find you anywhere,” Chad said.

“Man, you must have really been drunk.” Jared turned the bacon over in the pan.

“No, no, no,” Chad said. “You weren’t in your room. I checked.”

From the corner of his eye, Jared saw the pantry door open slightly. He gave a slight shake of his head.

“I heard you,” Chad said. He nursed his coffee. “In the attic, I think. You were talking to someone.”

Jared laughed. “That was a vivid dream, dude.”

Chad tipped his head to the side and squinted at Jared. “It wasn’t a dream. Who were you talking to?”

“What if I told you I have a secret lover?” Jared asked.

Chad started to laugh, but seeing the serious expression on Jared’s face he stopped. “Are you off your meds, Jay? I mean, maybe you should talk to Dr. Huffman?”

Something molten and dangerous filled his chest. “I’m not crazy,” he said.

“Right,” Chad said. “You have a secret lover. Jared, man, come on. I knew being isolated in a place like this wouldn’t be good for you.”

“If you heard me talking, then you heard someone answering me.”

Chad drummed his fingers on the table. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Jared said.

“What? Why?”

Jensen stepped from the pantry with the knife in his hand.

“No one lives to tell the tale,” Jensen said.

Chad’s eyes went wide. “Jared?” He stumbled over his chair as he rose, unable to avoid Jensen’s blade which sank to the hilt just below his solar plexus. The knife went in at an upward angle straight into his heart. Jensen eased the body to the floor.

“Take that downstairs and string it up. Breakfast is nearly ready,” Jared said as he turned back to the stove.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen said. He had squatted down beside the body, and his fingertips were pressed to the carotid artery.

“Are you?” Jared asked as he watched Jensen stand.

“I…” Jensen bit his lip.

“You aren’t, and neither am I. That’s why we’re perfect for each other, darlin’.” He drew Jensen forward and kissed him. “Now go on and take care of that, and I’ll bring breakfast down in a few minutes. How many eggs do you want?”

“Two.”

“Over easy.”

“You know me.” Jensen smiled.

Jared grinned in return. “Every inch of you.”

Jensen brushed Jared’s hair out of his eyes. “I adore you.”

“Yeah, you’re everything I need.”

 

-30-

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